Choosing a web hosting company can be bewildering. You type 'web hosting' in a search engine and you are presented with literally millions of web sites. Some are actual web hosting sites but most are probably 'review' sites and other 'best web hosting companies' type of listings. There are so many of these review / directory sites because many web hosting companies pay a commission to the site owner if they get a sale from someone coming from that site. This does not mean that you should disregard review sites. They can be very helpful. Firstly, there are definitely some genuine review sites out there that are not driven by commission. Secondly, most (but certainly not all) review site owners do not list companies with bad reputations.

First, look at a bunch of review sites and note down the companies which are consistently in the top 10 and offer the features you want (that's worthy of another article !) and are in your price range. Then bring up Google or any other search engine and type in the name of the first web hosting provider on your list as well as the word 'forums'. This will bring up any mentions of that web hosting company among internet message boards; where unlike review sites, most information is just people's honest opinions. You will typically find messages posted on webmaster and other specialty sites where the users usually know what they are talking about. Although finding positive posts about the particular web hosting company you are interested in is the best outcome - its also true that no news is good news.