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Attributes Of A Good Web Host
Depending on what you want to do with your website, your requirements for a good web host may differ. But in general terms, listed below are the things you should expect a modern day web hosting service to provide:

The Bandwidth

Bandwidth is the amount of traffic that goes out from your site including your images, clips, pages, etc. within any particular month. Some web-hosting companies now provide an incredible unlimited bandwidth monthly. This ensures that your site is not likely to go down or crash due to insufficient bandwidth.

If you plan to use large images, graphics and sounds, or if you will be offering downloads of music, movies, ebooks, or software, then be sure that the web hosting service comes with a reasonable bandwidth. You will need it.

However, be careful when a web-host promises “unlimited” or  “unmetered” bandwidth. Seek clarity on exactly what they mean by the words “unlimited” and “unmetered”. They might end up  not meaning what you know them to mean in the dictionary.

Reliability - The Uptime Issue

A good web host should have an uptime of nothing less than 99.99% out of 100%. It must be  reliable enough to keep your business visible to surfers. It could be a very frustrating experience to have your website go down at any time. Hence, if the uptime is not very high, its a no go.
No Of Domains Per Account

You should chose a web hosting service that allows you to host more that one domain per account. In fact, presently, most big web hosts like Vodahost allow you to host  unlimited number of domains. This is cool as it gives room for future expansion. You never know, you may become so successful in affiliate marketing, adsense program or  any other internet-based venture that you may grow to many websites. Considering that your site may not start generating traffic (= profit) immediately, this could potentially save you a lot of money in hosting costs.

Reasonable Hosting Cost

Due to the level of competition in the web hosting sub-sector, it is now relatively cheap to host your website on the internet. The monthly cost of hosting a site on the internet has fallen to as low as $0.99 for some basic hosting. You may save money by using a cheap web hosting service.

But a word of caution is to beware of very low cost hosting as the saying, “you get what you pay for” may apply here. This is especially the case when the hosting package promises a lot of goodies for the same low price. The rule of thumb here is that if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Having said that, a good and affordable web hosting should cost between $2.50 to $10.00 per month, and those charging up to $10 should better have plenty to offer that you can't easily get anywhere else.

However, this price range does not apply if you are using dedicated hosting, whereby you don't share server space with other website owners. But you don't need this at this stage. >>>continue
Attributes Of A Good Web Host
Some ISPs (Internet Services Providers) offer free web hosting services to their customers. The word of caution here is to stay away from such offers unless you do not take your on-line business seriously. This is because, the job of ISPs is to connect and keep you connected to the internet. PERIOD. They are not web hosting specialists. You want to host your site with people who are specialists in that field

Secondly, you will be using their name as your web site address. This means that you will not have a true identity as your site will be like a folder in their root domain. Hence the address of your free site becomes something like www.thefreehost/yoursitename or for snazzy ones www.yoursitename.thefreehost.com  www.yoursitename.thefreehost. But you want to have a clear identity and build credibility by having www.yoursitename.com

Finally, your site will be cluttered with advertisement and intrusive pop ups. All theirs! That's why they are giving you a free hosting service in the first place - to use your site as an extension of their products' advertisement channel. Be warned. This is from first hand experience.