Businesses have got to consider security when choosing a web hosting company, on top of concerns like readiness, reliability and increased website traffic.

That's the view from Symantec, the security firm, with data encryption, data backup and server security suggested as areas that should be flagged.

Gary Bunker, Symantec's chief scientist, said that disaster recovery is also extremely important, and businesses should be sure that in the event of a server or network failure their website should be automatically transferred to a second location.

And it is also vital to check the web hosting company's data protection policy.

"If it is a shopping site, then it will contain sensitive customer details which need to be protected at all times," says Mr Bunker.

This includes knowing who has access to the data, is there a process in place to deal with a data breach and how well protected the web servers are, from issues like SQL injection attacks.

Mr Bunker sums up: "While availability and uptime are key, security is no longer a secondary issue."

But do web hosting companies generally meet these requirements?

Business Feet offer professional & affordable web hosting through subsidiary 62connect.com