Although price is the biggest factor when deciding about what web host to use, you should look for other factors that affect your site directly like uptime, support, server speed, datacentre location, network speed etc. Below are some important criteria you should look for when choosing a shared web hosting provider- Uptime When you are choosing a shared hosting plan, make sure you have certain uptime guarantees. The bare minimum you should accept from your host is 99%. A web host with bad uptime causes frustration for the site owner, its users and affects its ranking in search engines. Speed Sites sharing a server don’t affect the speed and performance of each other using the shared hosting at Namecheap, but this can’t be said of many web hosting companies. Traffic Always estimate the bandwidth requirement for your website while choosing a web host. You may be breaking your host fair use policy if you utilize too much bandwidth. So always make sure to read the fine print of the fair use policy of the host. Resources In shared hosting, server resources are shared across the tenants and their websites. Always make sure to read the fine print of the web host for fair use policy. If your site receives a huge amount of traffic or has large downloadable files, it may cause a problem for other sites on the server. A web host may choose to warn you or suspend your account. Limited customization A shared host doesn’t allow you to run alternative operating systems like Ubuntu, databases like PostgreSQL. If you have such special technical requirements, shared hosting might not be right for you. Instead, you should purchase a VPS or dedicated server and customize it according to your requirement. Support Although shared hosting is inexpensive, it isn’t an excuse for poor support from the hosting provider. Look out for a web host with live chat support working around the clock with proper help, documentation section, email, and phone support. Disk Space It refers to the amount of hard disk space a web host company provides to the user with their hosting plan. If your site is image-heavy or features audio or video files, make sure you have enough space available with your hosting plan. Media heavy website also needs a lot of bandwidth to serve the site to users. Therefore, make sure you monitor the disk space and bandwidth from your web host’s control panel. Control Panels Control panel is a web-based interface that allows you to manage your server, email, DNS settings etc. Make sure that your web host includes a control panel with the shared hosting. One-click Applications Installer For easy installation of applications like Joomla, WordPress, or a website builder such as Weebly, select a web host that offers a 1-click installer like softaculous.