Finding a web host is the focus of this website, so you won't find all of the answers on this particular page. There are many web hosting companies - some are good, others very bad. There are tiny one-person operations and giant corporate behemoths. In order to pick a good host for you, you'll have to decide what you want your site to be. If you want a simple, single-page site to act as a brochure for a small business, then you can get a simple web hosting account from any quality host. If you are starting a giant web-based venture, which will have a huge PR campaign guaranteeing thousands of users from day one, you'll want to make sure that your host can reliably deal with the traffic. Perhaps you're a bit of both, starting small, with a limited budget but needing the ability to scale your hosting infrastructure as your business takes off.
Your first decision will be which type of web hosting you need. Smaller scale and smaller budgets will often start with shared hosting, which is the least expensive type you can get. Specialized needs or growing traffic might necessitate the use of a Virtual Private Server or VPS. The largest and busiest sites will require dedicated servers.
While considering hosts, you should try to make sure that you don't find one which oversells their services excessively. Since not every site will be accessed at the same time and not every user will use the entire amount of disk space that they are allotted, it's possible for a vendor to (for example) sell 1.5 TB of storage on a server that contains only 1TB of disk space. What you need to find out is whether a host is in the habit of placing too many accounts on one server.
You should check that the host that you choose will provide the level of technical support that you will need. If you are extra tech-savvy, then you will probably not need the level of guidance that a novice will. Keep in mind that any hardware malfunctions and site or network outages will almost certainly require tech support to sort them out. If 24 hour support isn't available, there is a good chance that your site will be down longer in the event of a hardware failure.
Your first decision will be which type of web hosting you need. Smaller scale and smaller budgets will often start with shared hosting, which is the least expensive type you can get. Specialized needs or growing traffic might necessitate the use of a Virtual Private Server or VPS. The largest and busiest sites will require dedicated servers.
While considering hosts, you should try to make sure that you don't find one which oversells their services excessively. Since not every site will be accessed at the same time and not every user will use the entire amount of disk space that they are allotted, it's possible for a vendor to (for example) sell 1.5 TB of storage on a server that contains only 1TB of disk space. What you need to find out is whether a host is in the habit of placing too many accounts on one server.
You should check that the host that you choose will provide the level of technical support that you will need. If you are extra tech-savvy, then you will probably not need the level of guidance that a novice will. Keep in mind that any hardware malfunctions and site or network outages will almost certainly require tech support to sort them out. If 24 hour support isn't available, there is a good chance that your site will be down longer in the event of a hardware failure.