About the Rankings...

Customer Service.  We were surprised that the entire top 13 could be populated with 24/7 service for under $10.  Our previous web hosting provider only offered M-F 9-5 support and charged more per month than any of these web hosting providers.  We saved over 65% on our monthly fees.  All of the above web hosting providers should be commended for the incredible value they offer.  Even among this elite pack of web hosting providers there were 2 companies that stood out:  HostMonster and StartLogic, both offer lightning fast live operator support - including online live operator chat. The online live chat is signaled by those with the green 24/7.

Disk Space.  This is how much data you can fit on your web site.  We only considered web hosting providers that offered 5 gigabytes or more for this list.  5 gigabytes should be plenty for the vast majority of web site owners.  If you intend to host streaming video files, large sound files, or run an image hosting site, then you should consider 100g your minimum.  More is always better, it's nice to be able to use your website/domain as a portable hard drive you can access from anywhere in the world. StartLogic offers the most space.

Bandwidth.  Bandwidth limits the number of people that can view/use your site in a month.  If you have a web page like this one, then you are serving nearly 150 kilobytes of data per visitor.  Our web hosting provider, HostMonster (#6 on the list) offers us 3000 gigabytes of bandwidth per month.  This means we can serve this page 600,000 times per day, or roughly 240,000 unique visitors per day (everyday) if this was the only page hosted.  You should always have much more bandwidth than you anticipate using.  The least amount of bandwidth offered on the top 13 list could still easily accommodate serving this web page to 10,000 visitors per day.  If your traffic volume ever approaches the maximum bandwidth, you can sometimes upgrade your plan to accommodate more bandwidth. If growth is a concern, look for a plan with upgrade options such as VPS and dedicated servers. For reference:  1000 Kilobytes = 1 Megabyte, 1000 Megabytes = 1 Gigabyte.  If bandwidth is your #1 concern consider HostRocket.

Domains Allowed.  This is a heavily underrated category.  Very few rating sites take this important metric into consideration, which is one of reasons we decided to research web hosting providers for ourselves.  Web designers, web developers, and web masters rarely own just 1 web site.  In fact, every web publisher we know has started at least 1 other site within a year of the first site.  If you only plan to start 1 web site we still recommend considering the web hosting providers that offer extra domains, because it's hard to predict how many sites (domains) you will want to start/own in the future. StartLogic and HostMonster are the top choices for unlimited domains. HostMonster should be #1 if you plan to buy many domains and you want privacy on each one - they offer free privacy.

Extras.  Standard extras include:  Microsoft FrontPage support, scripts, e-commerce shopping carts, plug-ins, templates, tracking, reporting, and databases.  Click the "Visit Site" button on the chart to get the full details of each offering.

Comments.  The top 13 list was designed to be quickly scanned for the key decision making information.  The comments are concise, relevant information for each web hosting provider.  Please be sure to click the "Visit Site" button to get further information on the providers.

Upgrade Options.  Some of the providers listed offer upgrade options. These may include VPS (Virtual Private Servers) and Dedicated Servers. This simply means that your site would be hosted on a single computer (dedicated) or guaranteed space on a computer limited to just a couple users. These options are great if you plan to expand to a very large size. For most webmasters, these options are unnecessary and the cost is just not justified. However, it is nice to have a provider with options for the future you didn't predict. If you need more than shared hosting, you may think of looking into VPS (Virtual Private Servers). New! Virtual Private Servers (VPS) from 1&1. Take the "next step" beyond shared hosting for just $29.99 mo.

Final Thoughts.  Buy early.  It always takes a couple days for your hosting to become active.  If you are in the process of designing your site, select and purchase your web hosting plan now.  For the vast majority of web publishers/owners, we strongly feel that StartLogic (#1 on the list) is now the best choice.