1. "Where do you see your online business 1 year from now?" The reason for asking this question is because whoever you decide to use as a web host should have the ability to grow with you. If you find yourself with a host that doesn't provide some kind of upgrade path in terms of webspace and bandwidth, then you could find yourself going through the potentially painful process of switching to a new hosting company, as your online business grows and expands. To help you make a successful switch I found this great article that will make any web hosting change over a lot less stressful. http://webhosting.5-minute-reviews.com/webhostingart4.html
   
2. "How much are you prepared to spend?" It's incredible the number of people setting up business online using free web hosting companies. There is nothing more unprofessional than a web address like: (www.freeswebspace.acmemarketing/~1424.com) All this says to me is I'm not serious about what I'm doing online yet I still want you to take me seriously. A good web host doesn't have to be expensive to use and domain names can be picked up for a mere "handful" of dollars these days. You can pick up domains here for a great price: http://www.godaddy.com An alternative could be to pick up a relevant expired domain that's already well linked to throughout the internet. This is a great program that'll help you do exactly that: http://www.popular-domains.com
   
3. "Does your web hosting company back-up your website on a daily basis?" Or more importantly... "What would happen if YOU lost YOUR website?" 8 out of 10 web hosting companies these days provide a daily backup of your website on their web servers which in itself is great news, but... Promises can be made and broken, it's a sad fact of life that mistakes happen and when the "gremlins" appear you better be sure you have a backup of your site, somewhere other than on your computer and your web hosts server. Personally I backup my site up to a removable Zip disk whenever I make changes to my site.
   
4. "How quick and efficient is your web hosting companies technical support?" This is a vital question to ask any prospective new web hosting company you might be thinking of using. There are 2 ways of finding this information out:

   
   a) Send them an email asking a technical question. The only down side to this is you'll only be able to contact them via their sales department, so the response may not be as good a representation of their technical support as you would hope for. All the same it'll still give you a rough idea as to what you can expect. 

   b) Contact a couple of their existing customers and ask them what their experience has been.

5. "Where is your web host based in the world?" When you have a technical problem how long will it take for them to reply? If they're in a time zone 8 hours in front or behind you and they don't offer 24 hours technical support then you could be asking for trouble if you ever need urgent help. Try contacting them at 3pm your time and their technical staff will be either in bed asleep, or just waking up. So you're high and dry for 3 or more hours! The best strategy to adopt is to use a web hosting company closer to home by around 4-5 hours either side of your time zone and offer 24/7 technical support. Of course there are many more questions you could ask and my free web hosting buyers guide will give you them all and more. Just send a blank email here: hosting_report@5-minute-reviews.com I hope this helps.

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