Finding a good web hosting company can be a daunting task for newcomers and even for experienced web masters. There are literally thousands of hosting companies in existence today, but for the most ordinary people, spending too much time finding the right one is not an option. Our job at  TopHostRating.com is to compare and rate web hosting companies, choose the best ones and show a number of other companies that are also considered good but need some improvements. We compare most common features (and many more not shown on table below), and give our rankings in table below, and also we show results as a pyramid with the best web hosting company positioned on top. We are only focused on the best of the best, and that's exactly what we offer to our clients: Independent, honest and accurate assessment and review of top hosting companies.  

List of determining factors that we used to rate web hosting companies and pick the best:

• Quality of Customer Service (very important, since no host is perfect, but when the problems arise,
  customer service should come to the rescue)
• Availability of Live Chat (very helpful when something needs to be fixed quick or get valuable info)
• List of Features that host provides (php, asp etc.)
• Ecommerce features that host provides (including shopping carts and SSL certificates)
• Disk Space and Bandwidth (while disk space is not major factor in choosing a host, bandwidth can be if site is commercial with a lot of visits) 
• Speed and Uptime
• Price (broken down per month, since some of the hosts charge quarterly or yearly)
• Level of Customization

       - The best hosting company
       - Still acceptable choice, but more improvements needed to reach the best.
 

* 1 year, quarterly or semi-annual contract required




Some of the Tips when choosing web hosting company:

• Customer service support is invaluable. Make sure that hosting company has phone number listed, and even more important is that they offer live chat with acceptable wait time (no more than 5 minutes). 24/7 telephone or live chat support is a must.
• Ask hosting company about number of clients they have (too many clients could mean slow response time, while too little not very much developed company (more chances for going out of business). 10000 clients should be a good number)
• When choosing type of hosting, make sure that the company offers side by side comparison of all features. It's much
  easier to pick right type of hosting.
• Pay attention to price listed for each type of hosting. It might look to good to be true. That usually means that it has to
  be paid either quarterly or yearly. Price should never be the only factor in choosing a host. Usually prices are very similar
  between different hosts.
• Google the name of the company for a possible scam. Also, check forums and www.bbb.org for number of
  customer complaints, and if they were solved or not.