(I can't believe it. I'm only a 5-hour-old user and I'm already giving suggestions to the website such as this!)

I once created a very complex features rating for webhosts that I was planning to use on my own website back when I had hyperPHP as a host. (Also 5 hours ago; I still have my site up there, but it will quickly be replaced by a page redirecting to Trap17!)

Here's how it works:

0. Base Score

The base score for any website is 2. This rating gets slowly chipped away if the features are less than a certain standard.

The scoring is also divided into different categories, as follows:

1. Webspace available
2. Bandwidth
3. Filesize Limit
3.1 Maximum Filesize
3.2 File Limit
4. URL Type
5. Upload Method
6. Forced ads?
7. Total Name Rating
7.1 "Naturality"
7.2 Length
8. Scripting
9. Databases
10. Miscellaneous
11. Penalties

I kept a lot of the categories that the original Free-Webhosts rating system has.

1. Webspace
1 - (5 / (<total webspace available in MB>)), or 0.1 is the webspace is less than 5.6 MB.
If you can request extra webspace, the rating is multiplied by 1.1.

So, for example, Trap17's webspace rating (at 500 MB) would be 0.99, or 99%.
An unlimited webspace (which is not recommended for Trap17, since 99% is already pretty darn high) would make this 100%.

2. Bandwidth
(0.5 - (<total webspace available> / <total bandwidth available>)) * 2

So, for example, Trap17's bandwidth rating (at 10000 MB, or 9.77 GB) is 0.90, or 90%.

Note that this rating is relative to the amount of webspace that the host has, and is not an absolute measure. There is no minimum rating for this one.
Also note that no units are used. MB/MB = 1, or a unit-free ratio.

3. Filesize limit
3.1 Filesize
(<filesize limit> / <total webspace available> + 1) / 2

This one is relatively simple. Since Trap17 does not have a file limit, its rating is 1, or 100%. This one has no minimum rating either, since a rating of 0 or a negative rating is impossible.
UPDATE: A low filesize limit takes away way too many points. I updated it so that the lowest rating possible is 0.5.

3.2 File limit
1 - (<total webspace available> / (<filesize limit> * <file limit>))

No units are used here because the file limit is unit-free.
Trap17's rating for a file limit, since it has none, is 1, or 100%. This one also has no minimum rating, as a rating of 0 or lower is nonsensical (why would a company give you 50 MB and then tell you your filesize limit is 500kb but your file limit is 20? Then you can only use 9.77 MB of space anyway.)

4. URL Type
1 / (1 + <number of directory levels in your root domain>)
If only 2nd-level domains are allowed, then multiply the score by 0.5.

Trap17's rating is, again, 100%, since it allows for 2nd-level domains as well as 3rd-level domains (subdomains). A site such as ZendURL (where the root domain is /dir/you) would be given a rating of 0.33 because it uses 2 directory levels.

5. Upload Method
Base rating is 1.
If FTP is not an option, multiply by 0.5.
If Browser upload is not an option, multiply by 0.75.

Trap17's rating is again, 100%, since it allows for both methods.

6. Forced ads?
Base rating is 1.
This one is probably the most complex out of all of them.
The rating is 6 / (6 + <severity rating of ads>).

UPDATE: Scores of infinity are possible. I've added a damping factor.

For each banner ad placed on the page of the user's website:
If the banner is smaller than 200x140, add 0.5 to the rating.
If the banner is larger than 200x140 (either dimension) but smaller than 600x320, add 1.5 to the rating.
If the banner is larger than 600x320 (either dimension), add 2.5 to the rating.
If the banner is placed on the top, multiply this "plus" score by 1.1.
If the banner is placed on the bottom, multiply this "plus" score by 0.8.
If the banner is placed in the center, multiply this "plus" score by 1.4.

For each pop-up ad placed on the page:
If the pop-up is smaller than 240x180, add 1 to the rating.
If the pop-up is larger than 240x180 (either dimension) but smaller than 640x480, add 3 to the rating.
If the pop-up is larger than 640x480 (either dimension), add 6 to the rating.

For each textlink banner placed on the page:
Add 0.5 to the severity rating for every link that appears on the text.

Trap17's rating is, of course, 100%, because they don't have ads.

If your own ads are allowed, multiply the rating by 1.1.

7. Name Rating

What's in a name? The difference between users and no users, if you're a webhost! This is my own addition to the feature rating. I really hate it when webhosts name their site something like "007webhost" or "000iWeb". In my opinion, these names are cheap and unattractive. (I was going to say "retarded", but I think that's a bit...uncultured for a post like this.)

This system works much in the way the ad rating works.

5 / (<"naturality" rating> + 5) * <length rating>

UPDATE: The length rating actually contributed to the score. I've undone this.

7.1 "Naturality"

A higher rating is actually less natural.

If the name contains "host" in it, add 4 to the naturality rating.
If the name contains "web" in it, add 2 to the rating.
If the name contains "free" in it, add 5 to the rating.
If the name contains "mb" or "gb" preceded by a number, add 3 to the rating.
If the name contains a number at the beginning that is 3 digits or longer, add 2 to the rating.
If the name of the host itself (not the domain) contains the letter "i" in lowercase anywhere in its name that is not part of any word, add 2 to the rating.

Of course, Trap17 doesn't have any of these things, so its rating is 100% again!

7.2 Length

0.8 ^ (<length of domain name> - 10)

If the domain name is 10 characters or shorter, then assume it to be 10.

Trap 17's rating here is 100% again! Yay! But then again, so is 110mb, which was the best host I've had so far until they disabled MySQL databases.

The overall rating here is 100%.

8. Scripting

The base score is 1.
If PHP scripting is not enabled, multiply the score by 0.9.
If Safe Mode is ON, multiply the score by 0.85.
If any other type of scripting is enabled, multiply the score by 1.01 for each type.

UPDATE: Okay, I think safe mode off is a very important feature, and should derate the host if it is on, rather than giving points if it is off.

9. Databases

The base score is 1.
If MySQL databases are not enabled, multiply the score by 0.9.
If any other type of database (e.g. Microsoft Access) is enabled, or if more than 10 MySQL databases are allowed, multiply the score by 1.01 for each type.

10. Miscellaneous features

For every miscellanous feature such as CPanel, .htaccess, and whatnot, multiply the score by 1.01.

11. Penalties

If anything bad is "noteworthy", multiply the total score by 0.6. (This is in sync with Free-Webhosts.)A "noteworthy" malus is something that is "majorly" unusual.
If the host is cobranded (i.e. it belongs to another company; such as iFastNet with ByetHost), multiply the total score by 0.9.
If the host requires forum posting for any specific feature, multiply the total score by 0.9.
If the host requires forum posting for webhosting, multiply the total score by 0.9.

The final score here is everything multiplied together. (If there are an even number of negative category scores, multiply this final score by -1.) Trap17's total rating here is 2.2051298602281734554654828680459. This scoring system truncates anything above 1 to 1.25, and then multiplies the whole thing by 80. So Trap17's score is 100!

I realize that this post is huge, but I don't like double posting and there's no real need of an attachment.

I hope this page doesn't look too much like one of the rule pages the moderators make. If it is like that, I apologize.

(EDIT: Added in placement scores for forced ads.)

This post has been edited by tricky77puzzle: Mar 6 2008, 11:19 PM

Very interesting approach to determining the "value" of a Web Hosting Service. (Free or otherwise)

Do you have a list or table of the data for the various Free Web Hosting Services currently available on the Internet? Just curious about how the Trap17 compares with others.

There might be other criteria you could measure in this process... Add-on Domains and Parked Domains allowed? .htaccess available? php.ini limited?

Well, there's always Free-Webhosts.com. Stuff like Add-on Domains, Parked Domains, and .htaccess go into Miscellaneous, and are worth 1.01 only if they exist. The webhost does not get any more points for things that there are more of, such as 10 addon domains compared to only 4.

As soon as I get a paid host, I'll make a criterion for paid systems as well. (I don't feel like including one on the site that I'm going to host because you might be offended if I include a website that has a higher absolute rating [>2.21] than yours.)

Interesting rating system but the problem is in today web 2.0 era people don't like complex they want simplistic, especially in a rating system such as the one your provided above. Of course the form the hosting admins would have to fill out will be just as complex at the coding end since you would either have to create an individual database for each host or set up a flat file system. Of course my server side programming is noob at best so create a very specific MySQL database that will somehow make number 7 possible because I am not aware of anything programming that could split the domain apart like that and not run in any problems.

Like I said though even though it is a interesting rating system your doing two things; first your cutting out the people who want to rate the hosting themselves, and two if a hosting is bad enough based on your rating system they will never see the light of day of getting listed properly in a web hosting directory.

Actually, the form would look exactly like the one that Free-Webhosts uses. Everything is based on compatibility with the database already there.

The length portion of category 7 is well simple enough. The form the admins fill out is based on the actual name of the host, not the domain. Only the programming end is hard, but it is very light on computer resources (Light as in about 24 bytes of memory and about 30k processor cycles for calculations at most, possibly about a kilobyte/70k cycles total), and only the result is displayed.

People will still rate the hosting. Even on free-webhosts.com, the features rating comes before the user ratings.

The system takes low user ratings into account as well, as a "noteworthy" malus. If the average rating is below 6, then the NOTE is taken into account.
Also, I never said that just because a webhost gets a lower rating will not be properly listed. It would still be listed, if I ever made a host-rating website for one, for people who want to try it.