How do you choose a good dedicated web hosting service?

[Harry P]

When you look for a dedicated server hosting plan, what are the first things we should consider to have a quality dedicated web server? How to choose a web hosting company that will give you choices of web servers that fit your budget?

 

[Localnode]

I read reviews from an independent source such as forums. Good research is a must.
I also test their network speed from a few nodes (VPS are really cheap, can get one for as little as $5 a month) around the world.
Look at their network providers (Level 3, Cogent, etc) different providers have different connectivity around the world - Cogent is good in Asia Pacific while others may be primarily USA based.

Look at their SLA - if they don't have an SLA, then chances are your website might go down frequently. 99.9% guarantees your website won't be down for 40 minutes per calendar month and so on.
Server offerings - are their hardware offerings old? What are their prices? Someone offering 2 x 6 core processors for $20 a month won't be able to sustain their business, even OVH don't offer that low of a price.

Ask for any public uptime reports if they have them. Or if you find reviews on forums - sometimes people list uptime reports (rare but does happen). People usually do review their uptime.

Finally - only buy 1 month in advance. You don't want to pre-pay for a year only to find out their services are really bad.

 

[ElixantTechnology]

There are a lot of things to consider when selecting a Dedicated Server provider;
The first being what you are going to be using the server for, or course.

If I might recommend something, never make price the reason you made your final decision. There's an old saying, you get what you pay for; and in the Hosting industry it couldn't be less true.

 

[bacloud]

I always recommend to look at reviews, the people share their experience. I also recommend to contact with sales team by using online chat or email, look at response times, etc.

 

[MrRapidHost]

* A nice long conversation of queries with their sales team.
* Read review
* A quick trip around their website
* Try them for one month

 

[SenseiSteve]

Frankly, I'd want to know the infrastructure backing up their packages, and I always recommend reading their TOS.