This time my quest started with a gruesome 36 hour experience with MySiteSpace.com. You see every time I get this kind of service from a company, I tell myself to next time pay more, since you get what you pay for. Last time during my search for a webhost I had seen imhosted.com, so I started by looking at them again. Their offer was great, and their own web design was excellent, but very soon I discovered their own ugly secret: the pungent smell of scam. I found a very detailed analysis of their quality of service and their entire organization structure in a thread at devshed. I was shocked. Not everything that looks excellent provides a great service, and that seems even truer coming from experiences at mysitespace. One thing that thread told me was that before signing up with a hosting for a year's contract, one should always search the web, and especially forums, to see what users / clients are saying about their hosts. I failed to do that with mysitespace.com because I was so blinded by the number of bits and bytes in their offer.

To start off my search, I loaded up many different webhost directories and search engines. I found Web Host Directory and C|Net's Internet Services section to be very extensive and reputable places to look for a host. Very soon, based on my requirements, my search was narrowed down to these hosts:

• Host Rocket
• Blue Host
• Lunarpages
• Website Source
• Host For Web

All of these hosts offer toll-free ordering / support, and they have the best value deals that I found after looking at more than 50 hosts. I searched forums and reviews and made sure there were more praises of 'em then complaints, because there has yet to be a host that hasn't had any unsatisfied customers. But I had to choose one that stood out...

I settled on Host For Web. They seem so perfect. They offer 24 hour live chat and toll-free phone support, they have an OC-192 line from Verizon at their data center, and excellent support. I can host multiple domains on 350MB webspace and 30 Gigs bandwidth for $9.95 a month (which comes down to $8.33 a month if you sign up for a full year). Best of all, none of my support tickets, emails or phone calls get routed to India, which was one of the reasons I didn't like MySiteSpace. I mean those people should give their clients a $10 coupon everytime a message is fully understood or conveyed by their support personnel. Host For Web btw hosts the sites for the Reform Party and America First Party. Political alignments aside, that does show that they must have a strong financial backing. They are also a great choice if you want to be a reseller.

My quest ended last night when I had my entire website restored at Host For Web from a backup that I had managed to save via cPanel at MySiteSpace. So finally I can again be a happy camper and start finishing new website.

Shit! college starts next week. Damn you MySiteSpace for making me lose 3 days.