What are the top questions we need to ask to a web host?

I don't know what are the principals or most important questions we need to ask to a web host.
I know that we should ask about the reliability of their network, How long have been in this business, and what experience their technicians and leaders have.
But, what else I should ask to determinate if they are a good choice and I won't regret in the future.

Here are some of the questions for you -

1. Is your service is 24x7?
2. Do you have your own server setup and hardware setup?
3. Do you provide backup facility?
4. What type of backup do you provide?
5. Is there any trial period for which I can test your service?
6. Do I need to do payment before one month or is there any policy of payment ?
7. Which payment mode do you support?
8. Where is data-center located?
9. What are the security breaches have you set for your servers?
10. Is there firewall installation?
11. Is there any server monitoring team?
12. What is refund policy?
13. What are your terms of services?
14. If my payment invoice will over-due then what actions will you take?
15. Do you have live chat support or just ticketing system?

Hello, I have my own list here. I hope this could help.

- Ask what kind of server reliability and uptime scores do they offer, ask about the security policy, you should know if they offer a range of hosting offers and how easy it is to scale up and down, do they provide SSL and Multiple Add-on Domains, ask about the downtime history and back-up policy, what are they accountable for in terms of an outage, how responsive their customer service and tech support, how many customers are on each server, lastly ask them if they offer any kind of guarantee or trial period.

When you'll ask these questions to any host they will of course show you the better picture. Best way to find a true host is search forums like these and read the reviews about hosts. Trust me good reviews are very hard to get as a happy user is slient and annoyed user shouts on every forum. So whatever host you select just google about them on web and you will find all the answers.

You can also ask if they are a reseller company or they own their own servers. Another thing to ask is if they offer money-back guarantee and for what period. Are the services they offer managed or self-managed and is their technical support available 24/7/365.

For me, the first question would be, "do you manage to operate independent database?", and then follow up questions: "is your infrastructure regionally-located?", "do you optimize the performance?" and, "Is fast support guaranteed?".

If you are looking for a new host, I would suggest you to do a initial check on their client reviews. See if they have any negative review and how they reacted on it. Following are the questions

1. How long you have been in this industry and whats your uptime guarantee
2. What is the reason for the negative review (if we found any) and how do you remedy it.
3. Do you have a money back guarantee or free trial. This helps us to understand their service in a better way.
4. Do they have 24x7 ticket/livechat support
5. DO they have a phone number where we can contact them in the case of emergencies.
6. Do they have any TOS exceptions