Well we mention things every few blogs about things to look out for in your web hosting so I thought I might put a list together of things that we think are important:

Geolocation - we've banged on about this several times so I wont go on at length - but if you're aiming for a UK market - then host in the UK. Some popular hosting companies in the UK host in Germany and Sweden - so don't take it for granted.

Server: Apache or IIS being the main options. If you're migrating from one hosting company to another it's probably wise to stick to the same server type if you have any server side processing - unless you've allowed for added time and cost in your budget

Scripting: PHP, ASP, mySQL, Perl, SSI. If you've employed a scripting genius who is the leading expert in his field at PHP - don't give him ASP to deal with. If you want your server to send email automatically when actions take place, PHP provides a very simple command for it. If you want a quality data base - check to see if mySQL is included in the package....I could go on - but you get the message.

Disk Space: How much disk space do you get? Is it enough?

Server Up Time: A good reason that sites underperfrom SEO-wise is the server reliability - if the server is down whenever the bots come round to check the site - it is not going to be well indexed.

Control Panel - does it offer a flexible control panel that allows you to configure things like email accounts

Email - and while we're on the subject - what does the email package include - is it as flexible as you want - can you get all mail forwarded to an admin account?

Subdomains - sometimes it's good to be able to set up a subdomain - for example if you want forums on your site e.g. forums.mysite.co.uk. Does the control panel allow you to do this? Does it cost extra?

Help Desk - How accessible is it? Can you phone them? Is it 24/7

Let me see - you could also do a search for your hosting company's name - with words like "hacking" or "spam" and see if any bad results come up. If you have a site already you can do the IP check that Matt was talking about too and check the quality of other sites that are hosted on your domain

And that's about it - I've run out - but it's a good start :)