All hosts are the same aren't they ?
Well the way people research hosting you would think so because so many fall into the same traps.
Firstly lets review what a host actually is
A host is a provider of server space where you can load your site and it will be available for your clients to access via your browser, you host may provide you with other services such as domain registration ( see my other topic on domains) email services and SSL certificates - some may even offer scripting and design support
There is a difference between a host and a reseller not that resellers are all bad, a host will provide their own equipment and staff and be ultimately responsible for the machine your site is located on.
This industry is rife with kiddie hosts who set up a reseller account on the cheapest they can find and then resell out the packages, many operating while at school giving no support and of course when it all goes wrong you are left holding the baby. Some well known names in the hosting industry push to these types of clients over populating the servers till they are at crawl pace. There are bad hosts and good hosts as well as bad resellers and good resellers so finding the right one can be a minefield
There is a certain forum i could direct you to where every second advertiser is a kiddie host some as young as 10 and 11
What does a host provide
DNS
In simple terms DNS converts that click on a link or what you type into an IP address this is done through a range of Domain name servers to end up pointing it to find the right place the last part of the circuit is done by your host who provides the DNS ( in most cases) through nameservers i.e. ns1.hostname.com these are applied at registry level. Am I boring you yet ? while i may be without it your site would not be found amongst the millions of others out there.
Now here comes the fun part, a domain normally has 2 or more nameservers attached to the domain and if one cannot be found then it uses the second and so on this is called DNS redundancy, now many resellers and el cheapo hosts do not provide this redundancy and point all nameservers to the same IP machine creating a single point of failure. This is far more common that you can imagine it is also the bastion of those "hosts" that don't know how to set up DNS
In a correctly formulated DNS system you will have at least 2 separate machines running the DNS records ( we use 3 ) Another thing to bear in mind is that if all systems are on the one machine then everything goes down including email where in a properly structured DNS system then in the event of a failure of one machine the mail can be stored on a separate machine until the primary comes back online meaning you lose no important emails.
The state of your DNS can easily be checked here
http://www.dnsqueries.comServer hardware
Server hardware is important but totally depends on the sites running on the servers, until recently we were still using a 486 based server to serve html static sites, however with e-commerce it is important that the server administrator is in control of the number of sites and applications running on the server, the better the processor and the more memory the better. It is something many hosts wont divulge but it is something to look out for.
Hard disks
OK hard disks have a limited size so unlimited space cannot exist can it - basic logic dictates that but many so called hosts will tell you otherwise I have lost count of the number of clients I have seen fall for this ploy on to be told sometime in the future they are using too much resources and get kicked off. Raid ? I will only touch on this subject but raid means at least 2 drives running in unison providing for a failure in one of the drives without loss of data correct ? no wrong in many cases it mirrors the data and a fault on one drive can easily be mirrored to the other. I have see hosts say they don't need to backup data as they are running raid system - very rarely does a cheap host run anything better than raid 0 or raid 1 ( mirror and stripe ) Much more redundancy can be provided by running multiple hot swap drives running off a raid controller ( not software raid which is really only suitable for home use )
Network infrastructure
Like everything in the world there is good and bad data centres but lets explode some myths
you have a UK site so you must host in the UK - wrong unless you are running a gaming site where the lowest ping matters, For the UK East America and most of Europe is fine as long as the data centre has good peering to the UK there will not be an issue
Bandwidth is the amount of traffic your site uses - every time someone requests a page there is traffic sent out to the users browser and this is totalled up and is know as your bandwidth usage ( OK simplistic but i am keeping it basic here) Now imagine water trickling through a pipe providing the pipe is big enough it flows easily now add more water until the capacity of the pipe is reached - what happens is things start to back up and slow down, a data pipe is similar it has a physical limit yet "Hosts" temp you in with "unlimited bandwidth" - there is no such thing and again if you try to use what you bought you will be removed.
There are varying methods of connecting multiple redundant connections together so if one line goes down another takes over
Other services
Email and spam filtration is now expected of all hosts how effective they are varies from host to host
Backups - Ha! how many times have I seen hosts fall flat on their face for either not doing or not verifying backups, a host with a good backup policy is worth their weight in gold ( yes of course we have), in e-commerce this is your livelihood you are talking about do not scrimp for the sake of a few pounds, backups cost a great deal of money relatively to operate this is why you wont see the cheaper hosts operate good backup policies as they cannot afford to do so within their cost framework.
Uptime of 99% that's a bit like say 90% fat free it is a play with numbers 99% uptime means you site is down 1% - that is a lot
So do you still think all hosts are the same?
At the end of the day all most clients want is for there site to work and their email to work but choosing the right one helps that to happen
~ Karma awarded, This topic has been turned into an article and will appear in the Essential Reading Section of the Resource Portal. ~ 
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