What constitutes a reputable company to do business with?

Question

a company with integrity, honesty etc.

Answer 1

The definition of reputable is "having a good reputation".
That breaks into 3 parts. Having, good, and reputation.

People tend to understand the good reputation part but I have often heard people refer to their company as being reputable when they really mean something along the line of "no one has caught us yet" or "we operate outside of your system".

Part of reputable has to include the ability to research the company thru 3rd parties, and the a decent buildup of information. Time is needed. A new company cannot be reputable.

Ive totally been an internet geek since the internet was born (long before WWW) and to me its logical to check a companies domain registration in the WhoIs database.
Is it registered in countries where I have legal options?
Does the owner of the registration also live in countries where I have legal options?
How long ago was it registered?
Does theWayBackMachine show a history for the website?
Does Alexa show a rating for the website?

Then I check for the IP address of the website. If I use my browser to go directly to the website then is it there? Or is it just a webpage hosted on someone elses server?