Reading online reviews for webhosts is fine - but like all reviews online I tend to take it with a grain of salt. How can you decide which company is the right fit for you?

Again like most things, the key is to try it out. A quality webhost will have a money back guarantee with a full trial period of at least 30 days. I highly encourage you to read reviews online from a reputable site and then test them out. Hit them up with a live chat and ask them some questions - how quickly did they get back to you? Were they able to answer your question or accommodate a request?

A webhost should meet certain criteria in the following categories:

• Speed
• Reliability
• Security
• Customer Service
• User Interface and Experience

Another way to evaluate a webhost is to review their support section. How have they handled the recent Meltdown and Spectre attacks? A webhost's response to major events like these says a lot about how they handle their security network wide. My current host, Canadian Web Hosting reacted immediately by patching with ample notification to users and has even taken the step of completely shutting down UDP port 11211 yet still giving users a chance to put an exception to keep the port open on their server should they choose. This is really the best solution until processors have been upgraded to ones that don't share the same vulnerability or patches have been vetted to entirely mitigate the issue.