Hosting Issues

Hosting issues for AdSense are fairly simple, but sort of depend on what your long term plans are. I'll go over some options.

Free Hosting - I'd not recommend this. You need your own domain name, and most free hosts won't let you put your own domain name in their space. The reason you need your own domain name is because some search engines won't index sites in free space anymore. Also, I have a client who put AdSense on sites in free space, and I don't know what the exact issue is, but ads do not show up on her site. Not sure if that is a fluke, or if it is tied somehow to the free space (anyone who wants to comment on this, please email me). Free hosting also does not have adequate stats tracking, which you NEED to operate a successful AdSense site.

The features you need in a web host are as follows:

• Good stats tracking. This is a must. Any host that offers CPanel, or business class hosting will do the job. 
• Enough space to grow in. Anything over 1000 MB will be more than enough. 
• Enough Bandwidth to allow for traffic growth. Anything over 10 GB will be enough. 

Everything else is pretty much dependent on what the direction of your plans are.

If you plan to just have a single domain, with a single website which you add to over time, then almost any business class hosting will do. Expect to pay about $10 per month or $100 per year for it.

If you plan to build multiple sites, then you need to find a web host that offers the ability to put multiple domains into your space. This will save you a ton over time, because otherwise you have to have a separate hosting account for each site.

Oddly, hosting that offers multiple domains in the same space does NOT cost more than hosting that doesn't.

Yes, I do have some recommendations. And yes, I do participate in some affiliate programs from which I earn a commission if you sign up through my link. But you need to know, I canceled out of the hosting affiliate program that paid me the best, because I could not in good conscience recommend their service. The two that I recommend here are solid, reputable, and are also highly recommended by independent sources:

BlueHost - If you can afford $100 per year, billed yearly, this is the one to use. They'll allow up to 6 domains in your hosting space. Plenty of goodies in with it. Two of my clients use this, and I administrate their hosting, so I know the service is good.

HostGator - No setup fee, and just under $10 per month. You can even pay through PayPal if you like. Unlimited domains in the hosting space, plus all the other business class support goodies that you'd expect in this price range. I use this one myself for two accounts. This is my best recommendation for shoestring startups, especially if they are looking at building multiple websites.

Both have CPanel, Fantastico, PHP support, plenty of MySQL databases, etc.

Spring for the $10 domain name (GoDaddy has them for less than that, just barely - just DON'T order hosting from GoDaddy!), and then commit to $10 a month for hosting. The difference between $5 a month hosting and $10 a month hosting is considerable, and will make a difference for you long term.