Reliability and Up-Time. Every web hosting service in
the world publishes an "up-time" statistic on its
site. A number of them claim 99.999% up-time. Unfortunately this
claim is more than a little unrealistic (nobody is up that much
of the time, not even the largest Web conglomerates) and
completely unverifiable by an outside party. Still, it's good to
ask, and visit the home site of the host service or reseller
often in the days before making your final decision. Sites that
are often unavailable or "Unable to Be Displayed" are
probably hosted on a less-than-reliable
network.
Data Backup Policy. Read the fine print on the service
agreement. Even if a host service claims on its website to
conduct a daily backup of your files, it may disavow any such
responsibility in the service agreement. This is an extremely
vital function in the event of a computer crash or destructive
activity from an outside party (hacker).
