It is interesting to sit and read user web hosting comments about various hosting companies. Obviously there are some companies that provide a poor service and attract a lot of negative comments but looking at the top companies the key difference seems to be the quality of support and how it is delivered.

The top companies seem to receive overwhelmingly positive web hosting comments from their customers and even the ones with many negative reviews still have some very satisfied customers.

When customers get angry and post very negative web hosting comments the issue is usually not that a problem occurred but that the support team were unhelpful and unable to resolve it. It is highly likely that if the initial problem had been resolved properly the users would have written a positive review rather than a negative one.

As hosting is a long distance purchase (maybe in another country) users feel powerless if they are being ignored and vent their feelings by telling the world to avoid their appalling host.

Apart from complaints about their site being down for one reason or another many negative web hosting comments are about financial matters. This often relates to cancellations and refunds.

It would be very interesting to hear the hosting companies side of some of these web hosting comments as I can see that in some cases they were simply applying the conditions set out in their Terms of Service. These, for example, set out the process for cancellation and what refunds will be given. One particular issue seems to be cancellations where a domain name is included in the package. A host's website may say that a money back guarantee relates to hosting costs (i.e there is a charge for the domain name) but many users think a "money back guarantee" is just that.

It is normal for users of shared hosting to be responsible for their own backups. This does not mean that hosts will not take backups but that they do it without accepting any liability for lost data. It is clear from several web hosting comments that many users do not understand this.

All this reinforces my view that the most important criteria to apply when choosing a hosting company is the quality of their support (assuming of course that they meet your technical requirements). You must expect support to be available 24/7 by telephone as well as email and probably chat and you want to see good web hosting comments about the support from existing users. It is also well worthwhile reading the Terms of Service, you will then be aware of any "hidden" charges and what the responsibilities of each party are.