I have a Bachelor's Degree in Information Technology and have been programming since I was 13 and working on the Internet for almost 7 years. I know a few things about computers, logic, usability, and e-commerce and I want to share my insights into Web Hosting to make it work better for those on eBay.

1. The most important thing a web hosting company can offer is service and support. If resolving problems with your hosting is too much of a chore, then shop around for others. Make sure you get a good idea about how responsive a web hosting company is before you pay for a service plan. Get referrals from current customers, any good hosting company should be glad to provide you a list of customers that say it is ok to contact them. Get to know these customers and take your time researching the best hosting companies.

2. Get your priorities straight, know what it is that you want to accomplish, write out your plans and get specific with it. You need to keep it flexible but it should be specific enough to get you in the right ball park so you don't have to wander around the sales rep jungle in danger of spending money on a waste of time.

3. Shop around, you can get good deals by keeping your eye out for standard pricing among many competitors, look for patterns, and get acquainted with the vocabulary of the hosting genre. Link what you get with price to get an idea of value, but keep your eye out for the fine print. Many specials and deals have hooks or gotchas. Knowing what you want to do from step 2 helps you determine what your give and take points are. No hosting plan will give "it all" without costing something for it. Many will look like they give it all but will only be shells that you have to fill in on your own.

4. The trade off between a big company web hosting provider and a small shop or freelancer web host provider is that a big company can provide the common stuff better because they can automate and have plenty of staff ready to help you with common stuff. A small shop or freelancer can customize unusual things for you less expensively than big companies can. The most important thing is how devoted the provider is to making sure you get what you paid for and then some. That attitude is what makes or breaks any provider big or small.

5. Many one-man or small group shops are resellers that work with bigger companies, they work as a middle layer and go between you and the bigger company. If that is the case, make sure that their service and attention to detail is worth the extra cost. If not, go to the bigger companies direct. The trade off between bigger companies and smaller ones is that the bigger ones will probably provide the generic stuff better, quicker, and cheaper (templates, marketing packages) and smaller shops will provide custom one on one stuff better, cheaper, and sometimes quicker in most cases. If the freelancer or small shop are hacks (when I say hack I mean amtuers) then you'll see a big drop off when it comes to this customizing. If that is the case, it would be much better to go with a big company and get out from under the hack jobs as quick as possible.

6. The real upside to going with a small shop or sole proprietor hosting provider is the level of expertise they provide and ability to customize your hosting and web site to your needs affordably. Most big companies either don't offer that level of in depth customization or charge a lot more for it. If you don't need a lot of custom built stuff tailored to your hosting needs then going with a big company can be easier than filtering through the hacks and the good guys in the web hosting market. But having a knowledgable person to work one on one with is gold if you are willing to find them.

7. Avoid all dirt cheap hosting offers as well as free ones unless you know from step 2 that you'll be ok with the limitations and time consumption these offers bring. It might take more time to discover but you'll hit the limitations of these offers as you go along with your hosting goals then you'll be invested in your site and have to back out and start over again somewhere else.

8. Don't do it yourself. Really it's a waste. Hosting plans are so cheap and taking the load off of yourself technically is so much easier and efficient when it comes to running a business. Make back ups of your files and have contingency plans should something go wrong, but running your own servers is usually just an ego trip someone is on about being more technically savvy than thou. If you've run the numbers and it works out better to run your own servers then by all means you're ahead of the game, ignore me. Remember to calculate your time, maintenance, and fail proof expense.

9. Make sure that your hosting company registers the domain name with you as the Owner / Registrant, otherwise they are using your money to buy a domain name in their name. If they don't know how to register domain names then you know something about their level of expertise, if they do this on purpose then you know they are crooked.

10. Hire someone to plan out your site and hosting needs with a business emphasis (if you are planning a business application for your hosting) - the technical people are in charge of the technical aspects of your site. Don't confuse that with the business side. One of the worst mistakes I see in consulting people is that people assume because someone understands technology that they understand business principles in the practice of running a profitable business using technology. Not so. If you can't see your site from a business perspective and what mechanisms you need in place to make money from it, then you're wasting your time and money on a hobby site and that is where most people end up while hosting companies make money off of their lack of insight. Hopefully now you won't be one of those case scenarios, because now you know and knowing is half the battle.