There really is no way to find out who the top web host is. People have different needs. Certain webmasters care about costs, others care about how much bandwidth they're getting. Everybody is different. Everybody has their own criteria for what they consider to be the top web host. That being said, there are some factors that have to be considered when choosing a web host.

First off, the price should not be the determining factor when picking a web host. You can find free web hosting all over the internet. That doesn't mean it's a wise decision to actually use them. Remember that there is probably a very good reason why its free. No self respecting web business uses free web hosting.

Something that is critical when picking a host is their customer service. They should offer customer support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; No excuses! You should also be able to contact them through multiple avenues, whether it be through the phone, email, or online chat.

It's also important that you can rely on their service. For instance, if you are contacting them through email. They should reply to you (even if its just to let you know they are working on the issue) within 6 hours. It should be treated like if it was a phone call. There should be somebody working on the issue the moment you sent the email. There are countless stories of people waiting weeks just to get an email reply from their host. These are the kinds of things that can happen when you choose a third rate web host.

The features the web host offers should also be considered. For example shared web hosting is a perfect option for newbies. It allows you to host many or unlimited domains within one shared account. How this works is all your domains that were purchased after the first domain are considered subdomains or add-on domains. All these websites are hosted on a shared with other account holders of the respective web host. You can find top web hosts that offer this option at very affordable prices.

If you are an experienced webmaster, then a more viable option would be to get a virtual private server or get dedicated hosting. This way you don't have to share your server space with other people. It may be more expensive than the shared hosting option, but it gives you a lot more options in you hosting.

It's not the most important thing in the world, but its also a good idea to get hosting that offers cPanel. cPanel has may great features that can help your website. It has a tracking tool that lets you know how many visitors you are getting daily, as well as other great tracking software. cPanel also comes with Fantastico. With Fantastico, you get tons of great scripts that you can instantly load to your website. You can load forums, blogs, and e-commerce sites with a couple clicks of the mouse. Fantastico also has WordPress, which is considered by many the best blogging software that is currently available on the market.

These are just some of the important features when deciding on who the top web host is.