Anything I should be looking out for when looking for a web host?

This seems good value to me:

http://www.mdwebhosting.com.au/webhosting/budget/

Any thoughts?

Dave

Dave,

Do a bit of research if you can on the webhost before signing up?

Create a support ticket or use there online resources to see what response times you get when they reply to your query.

Check out there community forum, if they have one?

Maybe also check out - www.webhostingtalk.com, a very good resource within the web hosting community and do a search on the forum or sign up and ask the members there to see if anyone has had any dealings with them.

Check out there uptime status of there servers, any good webhost will display there server status reports. It's no good the hosting be cheap if the servers are down all of the time, as this will cause frustration for you and any end user customers if this is for business purposes.

Also check out there Terms and Conditions or Acceptable Use Policy.

If you do decide not to go with the host you have specified, drop me a PM and I will email you a webhost who I use that are excellent and there support is second to none with a community base where there is plenty of help.

Hope this helps you before you make the decision.

HTH
Andy

depends what you are doing, but www.redstation.co.uk gives you 1 year free hosting if you buy the domain name through them. I find they are excellent for support response & up time and their control panels are really good to navigate. only problem is I assume you are not in the UK, so if you wanted telephone support it would cost you an arm & a leg

I too have used redstation and have found them very good. The free hosting is good enough for home/small business sites (a very good 1Gb webspace), but beware it doesnt support MS Frontpage extensions (unless you upgrade to the business account - £99). The other consideration is bandwidth - I don't know what the redstation bandwidth limits are (if any) but i have never exceeded any with a small personal website.

I have designed a couple of other sites and have hosted them with http://www.freevirtualservers.com . They are very cheap (around £50 a year - although as the name suggests they do offer a free hosting option) with excellent control panel which includes loads of free stuff. they include MS FPSE as standard and also have several scripts included. They have high bandwidth limits and the uptime seems to be very good. they have a ticket help system aswell as phone which is all reasonably prompt. All in all I found them to be one of the best options out there (I did a fair bit or research).

IMO most important considerations :

Cost
Bandwidth limits
Scripts/Extensions supported
Uptime guarantee
Control panel
Help/Customer service

good luck!

After reading alot about hosting and server sites...

Why are there so many Australian web hosting companies that are cheap?

Sadly for many disappointed clients, there are many very small web hosting companies that are run part time by a single owner/operator on the internet. Many of these very small web hosting companies re-sell cheap web hosting space they rent from overseas, usually America. They have low overheads, as they only rent their hardware/software, and do not pay data centre fees. You cannot usually ring these companies, as they do not have an office. They operate on an email basis only, often out of a bedroom. These webhosts usually only have a PO Box address, and no street address, and respond to email only.

... and decided to go with an Australian host as this is where the majority of my marketing will be aimed.

So far...

http://www.predatorsoftware.com.au

Thanks for the feedback,

Dave

After reading alot about hosting and server sites...

Why are there so many Australian web hosting companies that are cheap?

Sadly for many disappointed clients, there are many very small web hosting companies that are run part time by a single owner/operator on the internet. Many of these very small web hosting companies re-sell cheap web hosting space they rent from overseas, usually America. They have low overheads, as they only rent their hardware/software, and do not pay data centre fees. You cannot usually ring these companies, as they do not have an office. They operate on an email basis only, often out of a bedroom. These webhosts usually only have a PO Box address, and no street address, and respond to email only.

... and decided to go with an Australian host as this is where the majority of my marketing will be aimed.

So far...

http://www.predatorsoftware.com.au

Thanks for the feedback,

Dave

I would highly recommed http://www.bananahosting.com/

more expensive but you get a mssql server and very good support

Hooks