How do I pick a web host? That may seem to be an onerous and challenging task but it is really not that complicated when you know your needs.

If you have a website that is already online and you are looking for a new web host to meet the needs of your very busy website then this may be a slight challenge, but for most people this is not the case. If you are just starting a web site for the very first time then my recommendations is to start slow and expand as you go. All you will likely need at first is a shared server environment so you cut your costs significantly until your site is busy or profitable enough to warrant a dedicated web server. Any one of our recommended shared hosting web hosting companies should do the trick. The key is knowing your particular needs if you have any and whether you need or prefer a Windows vs Linux server.

Say you know your website will be an ASP or ASP.net based web site. In this case you know you will need Windows web hosting -- you can go with MidPhase Web Hosting, but be sure to register for a Windows hosting account instead of Linux on accident. It costs slightly more than Linux web hosting but is still about $5.95 per month for a single domain name vs $7.95 per month for unlimited domain hosting. This comes out to $60 to $96 per year which is a tiny investment towards a website. If you were to purchase a dedicated server web hosting plan, you can expect to spend $1,000 to $4,000 a year very easily, so why spend that money until your website really needs it? Just don't do it.

If you need a ColdFusion application server on your web hosting server, then you can consider HostMySite.com or Hostek.com or even GoDaddy.com; all of these sites offer ColdFusion web hosting.

If you don't have any particular needs. I suggest going with a Linux shared web hosting option. PHP is very popular and in wide use, so either you or someone else can easily develop your website using PHP. It's not hard to find a talented web developer who programs in PHP; plus there are many third party open-source web applications that use PHP. If you want to set up a blog, then PHP is perfect. You can have a WordPress blog installed in no time. MySQL will be the database of choice and is available on most if not all PHP web hosting plans. Currently, Cheap-Web-Hosts.net is hosted on a shared linux PHP hosting plan offered by Bluehost; we only spend $6.95 per month for our website hosting needs and that comes out to only $84 per year. A tiny investment for a dynamic, data-driven website. And you can be the judge of our up-time and our website performance given that we are hosted on a cheap web hosting shared server environment.