To understand SEO hosting you need to have a bit of background knowledge of SEO. Google sends the vast majority of traffic to all websites, so website owners are at the mercy of this search engine and try to do everything possible to make their site come up in the first position.

A large part of SEO is trying to get links from other websites; the more links the higher your website is ranked. A few years back Google realized that it was being manipulated by some clever people who realized that they could just put hundreds of sites on a server and link them all together making it look like the sites were very popular.

Google cracked down on this by looking at the IP address of each website and the IP address of the site it links to. In SEO circles it’s generally agreed upon that if you are going to interlink your sites they should be on different c-class IP addresses to have any effect. If you choose a regular hosting account with unlimited add-on domains, all the domains will be on the same IP, so it’s not useful from an SEO point of view.

A web host that specializes in SEO hosting will have a large number of different c-class IP addresses available and when you add a new domain to your account it will be put on a completely different address.

Now there are three things to bear in mind before buying SEO hosting:

1. This is considered blackhat SEO by Google since you are trying to manipulate their algorithm and if they find out they are likely to remove your sites from their index.

2. Google looks at more than just the IP address, they may look at the registrar of the domain and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (and Google is full of them) to figure out that if 50 domains registered from the same registrar on the same date with the same whois details then there is something fishy going on.

Another point to consider is that SEO hosting generally costs far more than regular shared hosting because it’s still quite a niche service. You can expect to pay 4 or 5 times the amount for SEO hosting than you might do for regular shared hosting.

However, since SEO hosting is still quite new, it would pay to shop around as the prices can vary enormously.

So what are the free hosting options available to you?

1. Web Hosting Talk
This is a forum where webmasters and web host owners hang out. You will find that most of the web hosting owners are college students or entrepreneurs running this business as a side income, so what you have is a great concentration of web hosts who offer their services for free to try and get customers who will eventually upgrade to a paid service. The amount of space and bandwidth you get on these hosting accounts is likely to be very low, some don’t even let you install a database. The reliability will also be low and you still need to buy yourself a domain, although some do offer a subdomain option.

2. Weebly
Weebly is gaining some ground as a great place for free web hosting and to set up your site for free. They will give you a subdomain so your website address will become http://yourname.weebly.com which isn’t all that bad. They have a number of great options, loads of free templates, a site builder, blog options and more, although don’t expect the same level of flexibility as a regular hosting account, you don’t have FTP access to upload your own files. They claim that you can have unlimited bandwidth and use unlimited resources although I’m sure this is just marketing speak. The great thing is there are no adverts on your site.

3. Google Sites
Not many people know that Google offer free website hosting but they have a number of options for clubs, wiki’s, projects, company intranets, classrooms and even family websites. You will get a nice selection of templates and an online text editor to add your content. With the backing of Google you can be sure the site will have fantastic reliability and bandwidth will never be a problem! The downside is that your address won’t look too nice and is in the following format: http://sites.google.com/site/yournamehere/

4. Blogger
Blogger is also owned by Google and while technically you couldn’t call it free web hosting. The blog platform and ability to completely edit the template to your own design means it’s very flexible to accommodate your needs. There are no ads, you have unlimited storage and bandwidth and you won’t get shut down for using too many resources if your site becomes popular. Your web address is quite short too and will look like this: http://name.blogspot.com

5. Webs.com
This is one of the original sites that offered free web hosting and operates similar to Weebly. Although you can’t programme your own sites, they do have many options like blogs, forums, calendars, shopping carts and even social networking. They have hundreds of great templates to choose from too so getting your site online is pretty easy. You address will look like this: http://yourname.hostwebs.com

Storage: Also referred to as disk space this is the amount of data you are able to store on your hosting account. Unless you are planning on running a huge multi-media website with lots of videos and audios it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever need more than a 2GB (2000 MB)– to put that in to perspective, it’s about 1,000 digital photos.

Bandwidth: Also referred to as transfer, imagine you are copying 10 files to another computer. Each file is 10 MB big, so in total you are transferring 100 MB of data. This is exactly the same as bandwidth. Every time someone views your site they are effectively downloading files from the server, every file that is downloaded counts towards your bandwidth allowance. Most normal websites will not need more than a few gigabytes of bandwidth each month – that’s more than enough for thousands of visitors to come to your site. The exception of course is if you are hosting videos, which can use all your monthly allowance very quickly.

Inodes: This is a fairly new concept introduced by some hosting companies who are offering ‘unlimited’ hosting. Many people are now asking what are inodes, the answer is very simple, it’s just a fancy way of saying the number of files on your hosting account! If you have 1,000 files, you are said to be using 1,000 inodes. Very easy!

Cpanel: This is the control panel used by a large majority of web hosting companies. Cpanel is by far the easiest control panel to use. You use it to manage things like your email accounts, file management, create and manage databases and other more technical things. Sometimes a hosting company will use Plesk, which is the competitor to Cpanel, but I recommend you always choose Cpanel hosting.

Fantastico: You will see this mentioned on many web hosting company websites. Fantastico is a 3rd party add-on for the Cpanel control panel that enables users to install over 40 different scripts with a click of a button. You can install everything from blogs to forums to support desks and even e-commerce shopping carts. It’s a very useful feature to have on your hosting account.

Domain: You probably know a domain name as a ‘dot com’. The technical name is a domain name and it doesn’t have to be a .com, there are over 100 different extensions to choose from like .net, .co.uk, .me etc. but they all do the same thing.

Add-on Domains: This is a fantastic new development for web hosting customers. Add-on domains means that while you only have one hosting account, you can add on more domains and they will be set up like completely independent websites – exactly as if they were on their own hosting account. It’s always worth looking for hosting companies that offer a good number of add-on domanis.

Subdomains: These are part of your main domain, so if your main domain name was example.com then a subdomain would look like name.example.com. It’s good for breaking up a large website, for example some sites will put their blog on a subdomain so it looks like this: blog.example.com

Overselling: A lot of hosting companies market themselves as not overselling their services. This refers to the number of customers they put on each server. For example, if they are renting their server and the hard drive has a 500 GB capacity, and then they tell their customers that each hosting account comes with 50 GB of space and they get 20 customers, they have effectively ‘oversold’ the server specification by 100%. Virtually all servers are oversold because the hosting company knows that in reality people will only use a fraction of the space and bandwidth allotted to them.

Dedicated IP: An IP address is a set of numbers assigned to an individual server. An IP address may be shared by dozens, sometimes hundreds of different websites. Some hosting companies try and upsell you a dedicated IP address, but the truth is that unless you are an e-Commerce store and need a secure connection there is no reason to get a dedicated IP address.

Name servers: This is one of the most complex parts of web hosting, setting the name servers of your domain. You can think of the name servers as the Internet addressing system. When you type a domain name in your browser what happens is that it asks where this domain is located by looking at the name servers. The name servers are associated with an IP address which in turn is associated with a server. Sounds complicated but luckily you don’t need to know all that!

As such I’m going to tell you the single best hosting company, but I’m going to give you 5 hosting companies that I guarantee are the best and let you choose between them.

So in no particular order, here goes:

1. HostGator – From $119.40 per year
HostGator changed the playing field for web hosting. They were one of the first companies to bring affordable hosting to the masses. With a highly trained inhouse support team that’s reachable by phone, live chat or online support desk, HostGator are well known for their above average level of support and high reliability of their servers. However their inode (file) limits are a sneaky way to limit your ‘unlimited’ hosting.

2. DreamHost – From $107.40 per year
A bit more of a quirky hosting company, nevertheless Dreamhost brand themselves as hosting nerds, but that’s not to say they are all about geek-speak. Started in 1997, Dreamhost are one of the oldest and most reliable hosting companies online.

3. BlueHost – $83.40 per year
Online since 1996, BlueHost are quite unique in that they own their own datacenters and build their own servers – most companies lease their servers. On top of that they own their own nationwide fiber optic network making BlueHost one of the most technologically advanced hosting companies around. As with other companies, they provide 24/7 support via phone, live chat and online support desk.

4. JustHost – $71.40 per year
A relatively new comer to the hosting arena being just 2 years old but they are already making waves and winning awards left right and center. One of their benefits is their anytime moneyback guarantee so if you sign up for their 36 month plan and want to leave after 12 months, they will give you your money back, pro-rated for the 12 months you have used. However, JustHost does seem to be run by experienced Internet marketers and the constant upsells, downsells, cross-sells and every other offer can get a bit tiresome.

5. HostMonster – $71.40 per year
Hosting over 750,000 websites and in business since 1996, HostMonster know a thing or two about web hosting. They operate on a one plan fits all model which gives you unlimited space, bandwidth, add-on domains etc. With 24/7 support by phone, email, live chat and online support desk it’s very easy to get answers for your support questions.

Nowadays you have three options regardless of the number of domains you want to host. Virtually every web hosting company offers add-on domains to your shared hosting account. This means that you could in theory have 100 or more websites on one account for which you pay just $5 a month.

If this was the case then why would you need Reseller or VPS hosting?

If you are planning to run a few basic websites, maybe a personal blog or a small company website, chances are that shared hosting is going to be perfect for you. You can effectively use a single shared hosting account to create dozens of low traffic websites for AdSense purposes with no trouble at all.

However, if you are planning to run some high traffic or high bandwidth sites, you may start off with shared hosting but find that you are quickly being pushed by your web host to upgrade to VPS hosting because of the amount of computing resources your site is using. Examples include popular forums, high traffic e-commerce sites, torrent sites (which are probably banned anyway) and popular media sites.

As online video becomes more popular you may find that your host quickly shuts down your shared hosting account if you are hosting some large video files. Sometimes hosts will go one step further and disable video playback altogether. In these situations you need to get VPS hosting because you can set up the system to your exact requirements, use more computing resources and handle higher traffic websites.

There is no real reason to opt for Reseller hosting unless you plan to sell shared hosting accounts to other people, for example your clients. Some people who make a living from flipping websites use Reseller hosting because they like to include several months of free hosting and then start charging the buyer a monthly fee, thereby increasing the lifetime value of the buyer.

Only in extreme cases should you consider a dedicated server, in which case your site should already be making a lot of money each month. A decent dedicated server can cost $150 or more a month, while a VPS hosting account on a more powerful server might only cost $30 but with many of the same benefits as a dedicated server, so think carefully before choosing a dedicated server.

Nearly all hosting companies offer an affiliate program of some sort which gives people like you and me a special link to promote and if someone signs up after clicking on our link we get some commission. The amounts that you can earn are simply unbelievable, web hosting is such a competitive industry that many hosts rely on a whole army of affiliates to drive business to their sites by any means possible.

The potential financial rewards on offer are enough to make many people forget their ethics and scruples and write lots of positive, glowing reviews (even if they have never used the hosting service themselves) of the hosting company to convince anyone searching for independent reviews to sign up.

To prove how rotten the web hosting reviews business is, take JustHost.com, a relatively new comer to the world of web hosting with barely enough time to build up a reputation, yet many sites are touting them as the best hosting option in the world. Why?  Because they pay $125 or more for every sale that you can send them – and bear in mind that a yearly hosting plan costs just $71.40 so JustHost are making no money on most of their sales.

Are you beginning to see the ugly truth behind web hosting reviews yet? They are not there to help you make a well informed decision based on real customer reviews, they are there to get the website owner rich.

Sometimes you will come across a review site that lists the Top 10 web hosting companies, do you really think that the reviewer has taken the time to analyze the different companies? Of course not, they rank them based on the amount of commission they get, which is why you’ll see JustHost.com at the top of many top hosting lists, since they have the highest commissions in the industry.

So if you can’t trust the review sites, who can you trust? You need to go to forums where you can get unbiased opinions because there are rules about posting affiliate links. If you go to WebHostingTalk.com and ask for some advice, you will get some good solid advice as well as be able to read some independent reviews, safe in the knowledge that the person who wrote the review or has the opinion isn’t being financially motivated to say good things about it.

Very often when you make a payment for your hosting account you will overlook the box that says coupon code. This is placed so that special people can get deep discounts on their hosting requirements.

Take HostGator for example, if you pay upfront for a year, regular customers can expect to pay $119.40, but they often have coupons where you can get your first month for just $0.01 or you can get 20% off the hosting cost – saving you over $23 in the process. Just do a Google search for ‘hostgator coupons’.

Another example is JustHost. While their plan is quite inexpensive at $71.40 per year, they try and trick you in to believing that the free domain coupon is the best offer they have, when infact a quick Google search reveals that they often have 20% off coupons running (at the time of writing it was JHSL20) which can save you $14 on the advertised price.

If you are looking for even cheaper hosting then the place to head to is WebHostingTalk.com and locate the Hosting Offers forum. Here you will get what I like to call Tier 2 and Tier 3 hosting companies offering deep discounts on all their hosting plans.

A good example is HawkHost, a company that offers outstanding hosting for just $3.29 per month, but a quick search on the WebHostingTalk.com forums shows that they have a 35% discount coupon here http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=967060 which means that you can pick up some excellent hosting for just over $21 per year!

Remember, whichever hosting company you choose, it always pays to do some quick research to find a coupon code. If you can’t find a coupon, there is no point paying retail prices, just find a different web host – there are plenty to choose from after all!

Check out this list of little known, very cheap, but extremely reliable web hosts:

1. Hawk Host – $3.29 per month with a one year pre-payment
HawkHost have been online since 2004 and have been serving web hosting customers for over 6 years. They are well known for having high reliability and excellent support. If you pre-pay for the year the price is just $3.29 or they have a month-to-month plan which is a bit more expensive.

2. HostQuack - $1.99 per month with a one year pre-payment
HostQuack claim to not be a ‘cheap’ hosting company which is ironic considering they are one of the cheapest hosting companies around. While their yearly price works out to just $1.99 you can also pay monthly which costs $2.99. HostQuack have been around since 2007 and not had any major problems in the last 3 years. They have 24/7 online support available for all customers to.

3. StableHost – $3.62 per month with a one year pre-payment
Incredibly StableHost are older than many of the more well known web hosting companies having started in 2002. While they are not that well known to most people, their fantastic support, little to no downtime and very reasonable prices has won them a loyal fan base.

4. MagmaHost – $1.00 per month
How on Earth MagmaHost are able to offer hosting plans for so cheap and maintain reliability I don’t know, but they have done successfully for the last 3 years now – they even manage to throw in live 24/7 support as well.

5. LayerOnline – $0.99 per month with a one year pre-payment
I know what you are thinking, for $0.99 a month you can’t expect miracles, but LayerOnline have been successfully serving hosting customers for two years now. While this probably isn’t enough time to build up a reliability history, the price is certainly low enough to give it a try, especially considering they haven’t had any issues since they started.

6. WebHost.uk.net – Approx $2.00 per month with a one year plan
Another hosting company that has been around since 2008 that provide low cost services and have been doing so successfully. Don’t let the domain name put you off though, they have servers in Europe and America and also offer Windows hosting for those that need it. They have a 24/7 phoneline along with an online support desk and live chat for customers that need it.

1. Choosing Free Hosting Options

Sure, you can’t beat the price tag, but is free hosting really suitable? Often it is the cheaper hosting companies that offer a free hosting plan to entice people to sign up. They overload the server with thousands of other websites causing your site to run ultra slow. On top of this hackers take advantage of free hosting to try and access other sites – it’s not uncommon to read that a free hosted website has been hacked.

2. Buying Reseller Hosting To Host Multiple Websites

Often people run two or more websites. Generally we have our company websites (or many business sites) along with our personal site. What many people don’t realize is the modern hosting accounts can handle unlimited number of add-on domains, which means you don’t need a reseller account to have more than one website hosted. Some expensive companies still try and rip off customers by allowing them to only host one website on the hosting account, but you should shop around looking for unlimited hosting.

3. Buying Hosting Through Your Web Design Company

Many web design and development companies are looking to offer value added services to their clients. Many of the clients may not be technically savvy and the web design firms charge high premiums for basic web hosting – often they are reselling shared hosting accounts which cost them a few dollars. Other design companies are hosting client websites themselves on their own dedicated server. This is a bad choice because they may not have the technical expertise to manage a server.

4. Choosing Hosting Through Domain Registrar

Just like web design companies, many domain registrars like GoDaddy and Namecheap are now offering web hosting services. While they are excellent places to register a domain, many people are complaining about the unreliability of the hosting services. GoDaddy in particular is noted for having very unflexible hosting that is not webmaster friendly. It’s always best to choose a company that is first and foremost a hosting company.

5. Registering Domains Through Your Hosting Company

While many web hosting companies offer a free domain with your hosting (although usually just for the first year), web hosts are renowned for having high domain registration fees. For example HostGator, while it’s a fantastic hosting company, charge $15 per domain whereas you can buy the same domain for just $9 from Namecheap. On top of this web hosting companies try and charge $10 or more for domain privacy, which comes free with many domain registrars.

The key things to take away from this article are to choose a dedicated hosting company for your hosting and a dedicated domain registration company for your domains.

1. Offer you a free domain when you signup

Virtually every hosting company will offer you a free domain when you signup. While this may save you a few dollars in the short term, the company will bill you each year to renew the domain. The price they charge can be more than double the cost of the domain if you were to buy it from a dedicated domain registration company. On top of that they offer a whois privacy service which comes free from many domain registration sites. The final kick in the teeth is if you try and transfer the domain to your own control they ask you for a fee to do this.

2. Offer search engine submission services

This is something that is becoming more common, hosting companies will try and promote their ‘search engine submission’ service which guarantees submission to hundreds of search engines. The truth is that search engine submission hasn’t worked since the late 90′s and there is only one search engine that matters: Google. Web hosts charge $50 or more for this service which is almost certainly automated and definitely useless.

3. Green hosting plans

Jumping onboard the Green bandwagon, web hosts have started to offer environmentally friendly hosting alongside their regular hosting – you even get a small graphic you can display on your website to show everyone how green you are. The truth is that very often the server is located in the same datacenter and they are just buying electricity from renewable resources like solar and wind to help power the datacenter. Other companies are using carbon offsetting by promising to plant trees to absorb the carbon – thus making your hosting ‘green’. Nevermind about the environmental damage that has gone in to making the datacenter, creating the server hardware, the diesel generator backup and what happens to the server once it’s reached the end of its life.

4. Purposefully limiting computer resources

With so many hosting companies offering ‘unlimited’ hosting, they are using this as a lure to get customers who would otherwise have chosen a more expensive option like a VPS or reseller hosting. What these companies then do is limit the amount of computing power you are allowed to use which makes your website run slow. When you submit a ticket they will say your website requires a VPS or dedicated server. Another way they limit you is by Inodes, which basically means the number of files uploaded and downloaded from your websites. Once you hit this limit you’ll find an email asking you to upgrade to a more expensive server. Very sneaky – which is why you need to email the host and find out about these limits before signing up.

All of these sneaky tricks can be avoided if you are armed with the right information and ask the web host questions before you buy.