Once upon a time, you could read a review of a product or service and take it as a more or less genuine opinion of the service. In this age of self-publishing, there’s nothing to stop anyone posting a review whether it’s good, bad, or neutral. Some of these reviews are published in the interest of making money, and the review process is merely a ruse to edge you into buying a product. In this article, we’ll discuss the different pitfalls of trusting web hosting reviews too much.
The Horrible Review
If you see an absolutely horrible review of a hosting service, it may very well be a horrible service. Another possibility is that the service is normally good to adequate, but one user somehow fell through the cracks and had a bad experience, so their review is biased against the hosting company. If you see a review like that, you should certainly take it into account.
Since anyone can publish a review, it’s also possible that a competing company will go to great lengths to give negative reviews to everyone else. It’s far from unheard of to hire people to do a smear campaign and drum up business for the ”better” service.
The Incredible Review
An extremely good review could be from a very happy client that got exactly what he or she wanted from the hosting service. That’s a great thing, and you should investigate that service. Another possibility is that the company itself is posting that review, and it’s a very common occurrence. Some companies will hire an entire staff to go around the web and post great reviews of the hosting service. Of course, it’s difficult to tell whether or not it’s a legitimate reviewer or not, so take exceptional reviews with a grain of salt.
The Hosting Review Websites
Some websites are dedicated to web hosting reviews, and they usually feature anywhere from 1 to 100 web hosting companies along with a blurb and link to the company. There’s two possibilities when you run into these sites. The first and almost entirely unlikely possibility is that someone reviewed 100 web hosting companies, wrote honest reviews of them, and out of the goodness of their heart decided to publish it for you to see. Few people have that much free time, and they would probably spend it doing something other than that.
The second type of site is a links-for-pay site. Someone puts up a ”hosting review website” and will of course give a good review to the different hosting companies. Usually, these reviews are directly correlated to how much the hosting company is paying the site owner for the referral link. This type of site is the most common, and it will tell you very little about the actual quality of service.
The face of reviewing has changed on the internet, so regardless of what a web hosting review says, investigate the service itself because the review is most likely bunk.
Article by BSimms
Borko Simms is contributing author at WebmasterFormat.com, place where webmasters can quickly and easily gather all the necessary info to develop and maintain successful websites.
8
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Boy these are really inside secrets which you just revealed here.
Certainly this kind of practice also common in mobile industry.
Face of market is really changing and they can adopt any practice to gain more and more sales.
I think its hard for company to give a very detailed and accurate review of a 100 web hosting companies without incorporating third party reviews into it.
Dave recently posted..Latest Hostnine.com (H9) Coupons
I tend to choose my hosting with the best deal. Most of the reviews are just somebody trying to make a bit of money. I don’t mind this as long as the hosting service is good.
Twitter: udegbunamchuks
February 13, 2010 at 4:20 am
The level of trust I attach to reviews depends on how I perceive the author of the review/owner of the blog. Personally I’ve been accused of writing smear campaigns when the reverse is the case as I’m only trying to get people to be conscious of who
they pay for what services. Some people just find it hard to take bad reviews and improve on their businesses.
.-= Udegbunam Chukwudi@Work Online Nigeria´s last blog ..Tweety Mail = Twittering Made Easy Via Email =-.
Twitter: another_blogger
January 23, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Yes Indeed we must really be careful about this one. This is related to many things. Thanks
I am usually really careful when it comes to hosting reviews. I do read the reviews on websites, but most of the time I ask my peers opinions and put a lot more weight on them.
.-= Tom | Build That List´s last blog ..Squeeze Page Tutorial =-.
{ 20 trackbacks }