Website hosting services vary widely in their features and functions and depend greatly on their individual abilities. Often times a Internet Service provider will offer free web hosting to their clients. Many people, however, prefer to choose from the variety of professional hosting sites available online. There are statistics that show services provided to personal sites are cheaper than those offered to business websites. A professional web host will offer their clients user-friendly control panel access for site management and script installation. It is easy to locate the various hosting services using any of the web-based search engines. While selecting a hosting service provider, one has to carefully go through the services and packages that they are offering. Hosting service providers often offer discounts on packages which can be effective for those hunting for cheap services. Host Uptime is a big factor that has to be taken into consideration. Uptime refers to the total time the host is accessible through internet. If performance goals promised by the professionals are not met, the owner can ask for a refund or cut down of cost. These factors however depend on the company principles and hosting policies. Hosting can be of various types like: * Dedicated hosting: When you have complete control of your website and the server that is dedicated hosting as it is available only to you. * Managed hosting: When the user gets a separate server, for himself or herself but cannot access it independently, it is called managed hosting. Such servers are leased to clients. * Virtual hosting: This service provides you the feeling that you have your own dedicated space but you are actually sharing it with all of the other websites the host serves. Your access is limited to your space on the server. * Free hosting: You get free space but there are ads on your webpage visitors access. There are a few less popular types such as reseller hosts, shared hosts, grid web hosts, clustered hosts, and collocation hosts. The most common type of service offered by web host companies is the general internet access plan. This package provides all of the services mentioned above as well as site design and email access, billing information available online, content management, technical information, and backup services. There are several parameters based on which, a user should make his selection of a web hosting company. Tech Support, Uptime, Disk Space, Bandwidth Limit, security socket layer are some such parameters. Below are top 5 hosting companies that have been selected on the basis of these parameters: Top 5 hosting companies are mentioned below: 1. Hostmonster- This web host service has been in existence since 1996. They have a reputation for providing great service at a low cost. Their backup system is secure and reliable their customers have a great sense of security. They provide a large amount of information on their use and procedure to give visitors a clear understanding of their performance. There are a large number of hosting features this company gives its customers including: * Large amounts of disc storage * Provision of domain name * Email addresses * Add-on domains * Domain parking * Advanced technology * E-commerce ability * multimedia ability * site promotions * web site promotions 2. Inmotion hosting: This is a web hosting company that is providing it services to clients all over the world. The flexibility and reliability of its services is praiseworthy. The company has won the Top Business Host Award 2008 and has been listed among the top 10 hosting companies. The company has been awarded for all its specific services in 2003, 2006, 2007 including 2008. Since 2001, the company has been serving its clients with dedication. The company shares partnership with CNET Certified Service provider, BBB reliability program and SWsoft official partner. Services rendered by the company include: * Private Virtual server * Virtual private servers available * Business Class hosting * Personal and cheap hosting * Management capability 3. Bluehost: This top 5 web host has been in service since 1996 and has a large client base. Their quality technical support and customer service along with maximum available uptime are just a few of the many services offered by Bluehost. Their high-quality environment, easy to understand control panel, and extra security give this company a great reputation for service and reliability. Both the company and their clients receive maximum benefits from their services. Apart from the basic web hosting services, the company offers: * Free website plug-in scripts like message forum, poll survey and software, moodle, PHP nuke, Tikiwiki and more. * A vast array of e-commerce features with shipping cart by Agora, a cube cart created shopping cart, password protection for their directories amongst others. * Multimedia features and world class technology are also there in the list. 4. RackSpace Inc: This company is based in the UK and registered there as Rackspace Ltd. It began in 1996 and never looked back. They are known as one of the most exceptional companies in Europe. Their client roster includes many large companies including: Confused.com, The Army Renault, OnSpeed, Vue, and Renault. Rackspace was included in 'The Sunday Times' list of 2007 best companies. * The company has solutions for small, medium and large businesses * Provides managed configuration and green configuration services * Visualization * Security services * Email services * Database provisions * Storage backup * Administration and reporting 5. Godaddy.com: This is also ranked as one of the top rating hosting service providers. The services rendered by this company are simply authentic and flexible. This company also has a few awards in their list which signify their prominence in the competitive web hosting market. They lure clients with ample discounts that can always be of great help. The services rendered by this company are same as that of any other big web hosting company, but the specialty is the discounts and promotional offers. Godaddy's features include: * 20% discounts on packages * Host server * Easy to use site builders * Site Builders * Business and commerce * Private auction functions * Web developers can get the offers as well as individuals | 
