We have been flopping around now for a few days trying to decide on a (possible) new host for 2 to 4 domains.

As one of our tests, we did some ping tests on some hosting companies, and the results are all over the place.
Question is, how important is that?

For example, host***.com comes in at 15 to 20 when pinged from 4 different places, while our present host on one domain comes in at around 31, and another comes in at nearly 60 - yet the slowest one advertises that they have the "best" connections and seem to have the fastest servers.

What am I missing here?

I could really use some advice on what to look for in a host (aside from avoiding all the ones mentioned here about disasters waiting to happen:rolleyes: .

Our main site that we are concerned with is an information and download site (mainly for PDF spec sheets etc.) with moderate usage (probably 200 to 500 uniques per day). We also want to have a forum, such as phpbb or similar.
Due to the large downloads that may occur, it seems to me that speed is an important factor, but not sure HOW important...

For hostign websites the ping isnt that important. Infact you wouldnt even notice the difference between 10 and 1000 ms really.

A server with a bad ping can still be faster.

Pings only get more important if you are hosting things like game servers or irc servers.

For websites, pings really don't affect that hell much. Though a low ping always give bragging rights :)

I'll agree with sprintserve and Matt here. I can't tell the difference from 60ms to 270ms on the web (but I am dialup too so yeah)

For game servers, like he said, ping time is very important.

The ping times you get are measuring latency and can be affected by many different devices between you and the server you are pinging.

It sounds like speed or throughput is what you should be concerned for your needs.

Ping times aren't that big of a deal when you're considering the difference between 20ms and 300ms, provided that there is no (or very little) packet loss in your ping test. The server itself makes up more of the response/load time for the page. I would advise that you contact the hosts that you're considering and ask for some links to sites on one of their "full" servers, preferably sites that offer files for download (doesn't matter what kind of files, obviously) so you can see what the actual performace is, since what you're really worried about is how fast your pages will load and how fast the server can serve the downloads.