For someone new in web hosting comparison, it is advisable to get a professional mentor for proper guidance. Many key factors need to be taken into good consideration, with their priority ranking clearly identified by you. Different individual will have different priorities. Below are the key factors for effective web hosting comparison which may be useful especially for new learner.

a. Cost – Money is always a key criterion when it comes to selection. A low cost hosting doesn’t mean that it’s not good; the value of the web hosting service depends on your website requirements.

b. Reliability – This resembles the available uptime for your website. The longer the uptime, the higher reliability the web hosting is. People are willing to pay more for a much more reliable hosting, especially for critical business sector, such as commercial banking, military operation sites and the Security Market.
c. Customer support – Fast and responsive customer service is a must

d. Server type – Windows 2000 server, Linux and Unix are some of the common server types. Service type is a key factor for a complex website which need a database function for dynamic setup of rules engines, thousands of tables and segment.

e. Bandwidth – This is a measure of the amount of web traffic available to you. If you need to have a very active site, then you will need a high bandwidth as your requirement.

f. Types of web hosting –

– Free web hosting account is available, if one can forego the reliability, performance and technical support service of the website.
– Low Cost shared Hosting account is also available where you will have a small amount of disk space and bandwidth, on a specific Server, shared with the other hundreds of other sites.
– Dedicated Hosting enables you to rent a dedicated server for your website only. This is costly and meant for large commercial type websites where excessive volume of traffic is expected on daily basis.
– Collocated Hosting is similar to Dedicated Hosting, except that the server is owned. This type of web hosting demands the highest cost with highest reliability and bandwidth.

In reality, it is very difficult to select the right deal that meets your needs. In order to overcome this problem, try to narrow your choice by removing least critical factors. Also try to strike a balance between the key priorities to match your needs.