What space will you need and use?
Usually you don't need a lot of space. If you are hosting your own website, unless it uses a huge amount of graphics and resources it's unlikely to require a lot of space or bandwidth. A good area to find your approximate space needs and bandwidth usage estimate is http://www.findmyhosting.com/webhosting-guide.htm#5

Is there room for growth and expansion (or downgrade if I need to)?
Check with your potential host what their policies are on upgrades. Can you go to a larger package with relatively little trouble? Or will you have to purchase an additional plan? If you feel that you are not using the resources you initially anticipated, will your host allow you to downgrade to a cheaper plan without a penalty?

Register and retain control of your domain name yourself
If you transfer control to your web host and are dissatisfied with their service, some will make it quite difficult for you to have you domain name released when you attempt to transfer to another host. They may become bitter and drag the process out in an attempt to spite you or convince you it's not worth the trouble of leaving. So, when registering your domain name, ensure that you retain ownership of it at all times. Our domain name registration site http://www.domaindogs.com allows you to retain ownership of your domain name.
Be wary of FREE domain name registration.
Many web hosts will offer you free domain name registration. What they don't tell you when you sign up is that often they take ownership of that name. As mentioned before, it can make it very difficult to take your domain name with you when you want to leave. Web hosts can host your domain name for you, but ask to keep your domain name with your current registrar. If they won't let you, then they may be looking to take ownership.

Don't pay a year in advance.
There are web hosting companies that offer super deals for payment 12 months in advance ONLY. Some of their prices are impossible to beat. They are also impossible to sustain. Many times, customers have signed up with 12 month plans and been left in the lurch when the web hosting company goes out of business. These companies live on unearned revenue and unless they are able to keep offering the special deals they are unable to pay their accounts when they fall due. Either their servers become overcrowded, and overloaded, invariably crashing and leaving the consumer frustrated when they can't access their website or the businesses close down completely. Try their product on a month to month basis first, until you feel you have gain adequate trust in them, then, if you still want the convenience of pre-paying a few months in advance, you will have more confidence that you are getting what you paid for.

Can you get a money back guarantee?
Look for a host that offers a 30 day money back guarantee. That way you can trial the service first and if the host is unable to deliver on what they've promised you can obtain a refund.

Look for a Hosting Assured Web host provider
Hosting Assured is an independent resource and is part of FindMyHosting.com - An Unbiased and Objective Web Hosting Directory.
A host displaying the Hosting Assured seal has publicly agreed to abide by the Hosting Assured code of ethics. If you encounter a problem you cannot resolve you can turn to Hosting Assured for help. They will then contact the web hosting company on your behalf and try to mediate a solution.

Uptime
There is nothing more frustrating than finding out your site is constantly down and your customers are unable to access your product. In many instances servers crash because the host is crowding the server with too many accounts or not monitoring server loads and difficult scripts.
100% uptime is next to impossible, but look for a host that has a high uptime percentage. Our servers have had a good track record of uptime and it's a record we're proud of. We ensure that our servers are never overloaded and we monitor them constantly for server loads. Don't just take the host's word for it that they have high uptime. Check out their track record with an independent assessment provided by an outside audit company such as hosting assured http://www.findmyhosting.com Look for a good longer term uptime, such as over six months and the number of outages the host has endured, as well as total downtime.
Inevitably there will be some downtime on all hosts. It's how the host handles that downtime and whether you can still remain in contact that is important. You want to be treated with respect, you want to know what's going on and how long the expected outage is for. If your host has many clients they will be handling the enquiries from everyone, not just yourself and you may wait a long time for a response. And, invariably if the datacenter is down, your host's site will be down also, messages may not get through. So, look for a host that provides an off-site http://www.techark.net/forum emergency forum that you can go to and find out the status of your site.

Customer Service
When you have a problem, you want accessibility to your host provider. We offer a 24/7 support desk and will guarantee you a response within four hours maximum, usually quicker. Our customer service has always been second to none and we intend to keep it that way.
How do you test which web hosts provide good service? Obviously the number one recommendations come from trusted friends or existing customers. Next, test out the service yourself. E-mail the support desk of the web host you are interested in with a simple question such as "Do you offer 24/7 support?" and time how quickly they respond. To be fair to your web host, there are hours of the day that may have a slower response, but if you are waiting more than four hours on a normal working day, keep shopping around. If your host takes longer than 8-10 hours to respond to a simple sales or technical query, imagine how it will be if your server goes down!!

Bandwidth
Many web hosts offer unlimited or high bandwidth. Unlimited bandwidth is a fallacy. Like the free lunch, someone has to pay for it. Read the Terms Of Service very carefully on unlimited bandwidth contracts and you'll usually find out that there are limits to it in the fine print, no matter what advertising has said. An excellent article on Unlimited Bandwidth appears in findmyhosting.com http://www.findmyhosting.com/truthunlimited.htm

I've heard some horror stories about Web host providers - How can I be sure I'm getting a good host?

The simple answer is, until you try the product and find out for yourself, you can't be 100% sure of any provider. But as we've explained above, there are a number of steps you can take to become a more informed consumer.

The internet is only 7 years old and it is still a new frontier in an unregulated industry with a lot of "cowboys". The anonymity of the web makes it difficult to really see your provider face-to-face and trigger your "gut instinct" on whether a purchase is reliable. One of the biggest problems to emerge recently in web hosting is underage minors setting up store-fronts and providing web hosting at super cheap prices. At the first sign of difficulty, they lack the experience, expertise or desire to rectify the problems and usually shut up shop, leaving their customers in the lurch. Unfortunately, until the industry becomes more regulated, these same providers will open up a new website and start the vicious cycle all over again.

Do a WHOIS search on one of the domain registry databases. Look for the date of creation and that the domain owner is the same person who the website claims to be. If the registrant is another business, do a search on that business and see what relationship they have to the hosting company you want to do business with.

About Monte Roberts
As the principal of Techark Internet Services, in 1997 I developed a web site for a small herb shop owned and run by myself and my family. The site became quite popular and soon several neighbors and small businesses in the community were asking for advice and assistance to set up e-commerce sites of their own. After developing a few sites, it became harder and harder to find good quality hosting solutions for my own site or those I developed. So, in 1999 I partnered with a larger hosting company and became a reseller of their services.

The main goal of the company was to build e-commerce enabled sites for small businesses and web site promotion. Over a period of time from 1999 to 2000 the focus slowly shifted more into web hosting and less on site-development work and eventually Techark Web Hosting evolved with full emphasis on web hosting.
Our market is as diverse as the web itself. We host mission critical to family personal sites but we treat each and every site as if were a million dollar corp. We want to offer our clients assurance that their site will be up and that they can sleep at night knowing that when people visit their web site it is up and working for them.
We lease and manage fully dedicated servers located in some of the best data centers in the world. We offer 24/7 support and unparalleled service options. Our goal today as it has been from day one, is to treat all our customers as if they were friends and still neighbors in that small community we started in.

Our motto is simple; offer good value for the money and treat each customer with respect and honesty.

What Makes Us Different To Other Hosting Companies ?

With offices located in Hot Springs Arkansas (where we started) and on the Gold Coast in Australia, we promise to strive everyday to offer all our customers honest value for their money. We are still a family run business, privately owned and debt free. We realize we are not the cheapest and have little desire to be largest hosting company there is. But we are stable enough to assure our clients that we will be here tomorrow and small enough to give personal service.
We intend to remain a small family run business with a level of clients that we can manage on a personal level. I have always said that we have no intention of being a mega host. We want to make an honest living. Our goal is to maintain that level for all our employees and customers.

Why Should You Choose our Company Over Another Host ?
Personal service, old fashioned customer care. Yes, there is still someone out there that cares, we believe in under-selling and over-delivering.