When people come looking for a web host for their new site, very often they turn to web hosting reviews in order to get a feel for what a particular company might hold in store for them. This can be both a good and also dangerous way to base your decision. Let’s examine why you may want to look at more than web hosting reviews when choosing a home for your new baby!
To begin with, there are often several scenarios at work when you come upon a web hosting review. It could be written by the web host themselves, trying to give the best spin they can on their service. It could also be penned by an affiliate of that hosting company, who also have incentive to cast the company in the best light possible. Selling web hosting as an affiliate is a very lucrative niche to be involved with. There are hundreds of those out there. Then you’ll have review sites, which often are nothing more than a compilation of reviews, which of course contain affiliate links as well.
Not to say that all of these review sites are a bad thing; you just need to include them as a part of the picture. Very often a review site will give you valuable information, and I personally don’t mind buying through their affiliate links if they have helped. You should tend to give the ones that are clearly connected with the company itself the widest berth, and take what they say with a grain of salt.
So what’s the best strategy for using web hosting reviews? You should definitely look at them, and then combine that research with a few more layers.
The next step should be looking at some of the more popular internet marketing forums, such as the Warrior Forum, DigitalPoint, SitePoint and a few others, and certainly any private membership sites that you may be associated with, as you will likely get a number of objective opinions from all of these.
Using your social networking contacts can also be a terrific way to get recommendations. If your particular crowd is not versed in matters of this ilk (as is often the case with personal Facebook and Twitter pages), you may just want to do a search on those services for web hosting recommendations. You will find many. You can also look for a web hosting company’s Facebook fan page or Twitter page to get a feel for how people are feeling about them. Most major hosts now have these. Be sure not to base your opinions entirely on this however, as someone may have an axe to grind, and their particular issue may not be indicative of the host’s overall performance.
If you manage to use several of these methods, you will be presented with a good general overview of the host’s features and performance, allowing you to make an educated choice about your new web host!
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