One solution to this problem is to peruse some of the web hosting ranking sites. The purpose of these web hosting review sites is to help you make an informed decision when searching for a web hosting service. This is excellent if you happen to find a site with honest web hosting reviews based on authentic customer experiences. Yes, a good web hosting ranking site is usually rating the quality of hosting companies according to posted ratings by real customers. There are a few large hosting review sites that have thousands of customer ratings in their databases, and by browsing these sites you can learn a lot.

Some web hosts have got predominantly positive feedback, while other companies seem disliked by almost everybody. Here are a few examples of what customers may write about a web host:

"Money cheating company. Sites were down forever (80% down) through out my 2 months with them. Customer services are poor and cant rectify problems. They transfer my sites from 1 server to another server but still can't solve the down time"...

Another opinion about the same host:

"This company is a scam, pure and simple. Check the Better Business Bureau for their ratings (F), not just for their existing Arizona operation but their two prior operations which closed down (www.bbb.org)"...

The review explains how the account never worked and how the company refused to give the person a refund in spite of a money-back guarantee.

And here is a rather typical opinion about another web host, SurfSpeedy:

"These people can't even spell customer service. Several times they would go down taking all the work I'd done with them. They were by far the most incompetent & unskilled individuals that I have ever had the misfortune to cross paths with. My site was down for over a month yet they billed me for it"...

This person ended up having to cancel his credit card to stop the company from charging him, even months after he was no longer a customer!

Only ONE of 22 people recommended that hosting company, the last time I checked in on the web hosting reviews posted on the site.

I gave you these examples to give you an idea of what you can run into if you don't use due diligence when choosing a web host. Note that it isn't so much a price issue either - most web hosting companies will offer entry-level shared web hosting accounts for around $5-10 per month, while the actual service you get for the money varies a great deal. True, at the low end of the scale you proably run a greater risk of getting really bad service.

The type of web hosting company I personally like to do business with will have at least about 80% positive customer ratings. And of course I also expect them to offer competitive features at decent prices.

While it would be very impressive to find a web hosting company which is loved by everybody, this does hardly ever happen in the real world. There is always some customer who for whatever reason feels they've got something to complain about - and an angry customer is many times more likely to voice an opinion in public than a happy one.

In summary: by perusing those web hosting review sites that base their rankings on actual customer feedback, you can rather effectively avoid the mean monkeys in the web hosting jungle.