Check the terms of service (TOS) contract.

You have hit gold if the host offers something like a prorated refund of any unused balance should you find the service unacceptable.

Typically you'll see things like a 30 day refund policy. So if you buy a year's worth of service the less reputable host need only provide 30 days of service before it can walk away with your money.

I had that happen with an Italian outfit called Host-Arena. They has a low-cost reseller plan for shared hosting. We bought a month, put up some trivial sites, and put an external monitor to work checking every 15 minutes. The site would go down from time to time but the outages were short. They also supported SMTP port 2500 (a must in the US because many ISPs and hotels block port 25).

To make a long story short, we ended up buying two years of service. Four months later they got mad when we reported problems and announced that they were deliberately closing our access to SMTP port 2500 -- effectively giving us a useless service for the remainder of the two years. And, since they curtailed the service provided after the first 30 days, there would be no refund.

Another indication of provider quality is if the TOS contains a penalty should you contest a bill or draw on your credit card. Some providers have a clause that says that you agree to pay them money if you contest a bill. I have seen "administrative fees" as high as $200 in some contracts. Obviously that sort of clause should be a concern.

Contracts are the plan for what will happen if things go wrong. They are tedious to read but they are a window into the provider's attitude and often reflect the kinds of problems the provider has had in the past.

I hope this information is useful,

Aza D. Oberman
Wshington DC USA