Powered with independent customer ratings system based on customer satisfaction, hosting plan affordability, uptime and support consistency, Web Hosting Rating is becoming the Web’s largest searchable web host directory that presents all the hosting information you need to come up with a decision in choosing a good host. Through them, you can also get exclusive promotional coupons that you can use to get discounts to certain web hosts. The reviews and web hosting rating they present on their website intelligently categorized for your convenience were written by real customers of today’s medium to large-scale web hosting companies, so they may be credible and trustworthy. I’ve been difficult to convince to get a hosting through a web hosting review site, as I’ve encountered before something that made them look unreliable. Fortunately, WebhostingRating.com is not one of them. However, continue to be wary and trust your gut.

One of the things I like besides the hosting ranking system is their rich and massive hosting articles library. It presents a lot of web hosting tutorials and web hosting guides related to web hosting such as multiple domain security, managed hosting management, setting up an e-commerce site, using a certain web language or payment gateways for your business website, among others. You’ll learn a lot of stuffs if you have time to browse this section that can easily be found on the site’s main menu.

Web Hosting Rating completes a good web hosting ratings and review site with their web hosting awards directory. Trust me, this is very useful in identifying a good web host . I’ve been hosted by Top Hosting Center for over a year now and I already enjoyed their hosting plan. I never regret that I trusted the awards they got that are presented on their site. Same would be the case with Web Hosting Rating.

Finally, if you reach a point that you think you’ve found the ideal web host for your blogging or business website through Web Hosting Rating, my personal advice is that you contact the live chat support of that web host and investigate further. Don’t even get a hosting to a web host that doesn’t have a live chat, it sounds untrustworthy to me.

Overall, the good thing with Web Hosting Rating is that you don’t have to research further on Google about a web hosting company as they already present most of the details you need to come up with a good decision. Good luck.

Customer Service

There are quite a number of ways to reach ImHosted.com’s customer support and it starts on their website. Strategically, the support link can be found at the top of their website which can be easily seen and accessed by anyone. Like what most web hosting companies boast, ImHosted.com also offers 24×7 customer support — that’s good to hear for sure but it doesn’t surprise me anymore. Interestingly, their support center is quite appealing. They put everything what the customers would potentially need all at the same place which is really good: from online control panel documentation, ticketing support, login links, and even comprehensive tutorials. One thing that is a bit unusual to me is their live chat since they just use ICQ messaging client for it. No ICQ? No live chat support. Personally, I prefer a web based live chat that is one click away than using any messaging client that requires software installation. Overall, ImHosted.com support department is excellent. If you are an ICQ user, you’ll love it even more. I’ve been reading reviews from their existing customers that their support is first rate — so having a different style of live chat is therefore not a let down.

Hosting Plans

As of this writing, ImHosted.com’s front page presents their mega web hosting deal. They offer affordable web hosting services for only $6.95 USD per month comprising of the following key hosting benefits:

• 2, 500 GB web space (huge)
• 20,000 GB monthly bandwidth
• host unlimited number of domain names
• free 1 lifetime domain name
• CPanel control panel
• unlimited database, email and FTP
• SSH/Telnet support

It is best that you check the complete features of their competitive shared hosting plan on this page to find learn more. It looks good for me.

ImHosted.com also offers reseller hosting which is perfect for anyone who wants to start an  online hosting business. My current hosting company doesn’t have this feature yet.

Reputation

I’ve done some research about ImHosted.com and I found some good reviews from their existing customers on various web hosting review websites and web hosting forums. I learned that their stellar reputation was brought about by their consistent excellence of their web hosting services (good uptime, effective support and well-priced hosting). This positive reputation is a good sign that a web hosting company is reliable. So, if you are planning to get a hosting, ImHosted.com is worth a try with confidence.

Verdict

Looks like ImHosted.com a reputable web hosting company with affordable web hosting plan for everyone. For only $6.95 a month, you could start a blog that you can monetize or run good websites. Their hosting plan offers not just web hosting service, but an opportunity for anyone who wants to start making money online through online ventures.

In this article, I will discuss to you what a good web hosting company is made of – and should be made of. This is truly significant – there are traps out there that will make you lose your money’s worth, your digital assets, and break your site’s revenue potential if you are too gullible in hosting your files everywhere. Deriving from these consequences, I came up with a realization what a good hosting company is made of.

A good web hosting company is built from the ground with the following qualities:

Robust, competitive hosting features versus price.

Expensive hosting may give security to some people and assurance about the quality of hosting – but this isn’t really true at times. You have the chance to overspend your hosting allowance to an expensive hosting plan where in fact, there are almost myriad small to medium-sized hosting companies on the Web that offer similar hosting quality features and customer support excellence at lower prices.

A good hosting company would offer plans that the masses can realistically afford. If you are new to hosting and you want to start running a site (especially a blog or a forum), a shared hosting plan with at least 200 GB disk storage, 2000 GB monthly data transfer and a domain name is well suited for you – unless of course, your proposed website has “special needs.” Choose hosting plans that use CPanel, H-Sphere or Plesk, as the web management software. In addition, the hosting network should be running at 100 Mbps speed. A standard hosting plan should cost from $4 to $6 per month, and should come along with other hosting features.

Typically, hosting companies sell shared hosting plans, virtual private servers or VPS hosting, reseller hosting and dedicated server hosting solutions. They may also optionally have domain name registration services and other hosting-related services.

Ask your company where their servers reside. It is a good warning if you found out that they are running their servers at home and not within a datacenter’s server farms.

Consistent server uptime performance, security and stability.

It’s very common to read on hosting companies’ sites that they guarantee 99.9% uptime – but trust me it’s more like a part of their blurbs. Downtimes normally happen (even in large hosting companies) usually after server patches, control panel upgrades, and reboots. However, these “critical upgrades” rarely happen every six months.

A good hosting company understands the significance of server uptime especially to their customers who earn through ads and services. It provides solutions towards greater consistency of server performance and stability.

In shared hosting department, where customer accounts and their files reside in a single server, a good hosting company would implement necessary software configuration to wipe out vulnerabilities and protect the server from exploitation. Some functionality of scripting languages normally would be disabled to leave no chance for hackers of intruding the system.

Excellent channels of communication to the management and support departments.

Personally I like a hosting company that features proactive customer support service (though some find it irritating). I feel secure if I am able to communicate with real people from the company than being answered by machines. For me, a hosting company is a minus if they offer excellent hosting plans but fails to respond in timely fashion their customer’s hosting support needs.

A good hosting company should be able to deliver at least two different methods of support: email support, live chat support, trouble ticket support, and telephone support. This ensures customers that they would be able to get help whenever they need it. Support from live chat and telephone should be instantaneous for basic inquiries. For more technical problems sent through email or trouble ticket support, a good hosting company should be able to make a reply in less than 24 hours and should be able to come up with a solution or a follow-up in less than two days (this may vary though depending on the severity and scope of your problems).

What about outsourced customer support? If you ever found out that a company’s support is being outsourced outside first-world countries (or North America), don’t worry much but still remain highly skeptical. There are many others countries in the world such as India and the Philippines that boast a vibrant population of globally competitive IT professionals. If your concern is the language barrier, reach their management and inform them so it will be addressed. Discovering that their servers reside on those countries would sound more “alarming” than their outsourced support. So, remain wary and skeptic.
The company’s “hosting engine” is constituted of people happy with their jobs – not just mere high-spec machines.

How to know: If you have found a prospective web hosting company that lets you feel initially confident with their hosting features, try accessing their live chat support and throw a number of questions to the support representative regarding how he/she feels about the company’s management, products and services. If the representative is happy, it is a good a sign. Companies with satisfied workers usually translate to excellence in their products and services.
Good reputation, positive feedbacks from existing and previous customers.

A good hosting company that has been around for more than a year with a good reputation usually validates their legitimacy claims.

The most common method to do in finding out the reputation of a hosting company is doing an online search (preferably Google). Finding reviews of hosting company that has been around for years should be fairly easy. Never rely on feedbacks done by customers through the hosting company’s own forums and testimonial pages – unless you can personally vouch that they stand firmly in bringing “honest” reviews to the quality of their hosting.

I suggest that you use this Reverse IP Domain Check utility to find out the websites/blogs hosted on the hosting company’s web server. From there, you can experience the actual web hosting performance of the hosting company and it may also provide clues on contacting a real, existing customer for better advice.

Personally, I don’t trust much the reviews made by “hosting review websites.” I prefer reading blogs having independent reviews and participating web hosting forums in getting reliable advices from experienced webmasters. There you can throw comments or questions about a certain company and people will give you relevant responses. In the future, I will make a post about the best hosting forums I knew.

People’s first stop to join the Internet bandwagon is to find a good hosting company. Normally, most of them would consult Google (or any search engine) to find “reliable” hosting review websites. Given the thousands of sites that appear on search engine results page, not all review sites are reliable. People need to be careful else they could end up putting money on fraudsters’ pockets than enjoying its worth.

Honest web hosting review websites are expected not to accept money from hosting company clients for their opinions. Being an affiliate of the products they review, though actually allowable and legal, still certainly can cast doubt on the truthfulness of their say. Though many would defend that they are only paid by their writings, obviously it is some sort of advertisement and could influence the outcome of the review. Web hosting companies participating on these sites are willing to pay a good amount just to have a good spot on the page – shame on them for fooling people.

I recently found an interesting YouTube video on how to spot fake, biased hosting review websites. It shows that identifying biased reviews are not that easy to spot for normal Web users. Watch the video below and you’ll learn the hints and see the reality behind web hosting review websites. You will realize how “trustworthy” they are.

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I fully credit the person who made the video. If you benefit the advices of this post, and you’re one of those people who are looking for a good web hosting company, don’t get scammed! You may contact me directly and I will let you know a good host that I trust, and you can trust. Don’t worry, it’s free and unbiased. My judgments are based on my experience.