Researching your web host before signup will save you headache, time, and money. |
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Research? I know, I know…research sucks. But spending 5 minutes researching your web hosting provider selection, will save yourself from so much frustration, headache, time, and money. In my opinion, researching your web host before you signup is the best 5 minutes you will ever spend during your search for the perfect web host.
How to find the best reviews on a host
Without a doubt, the easiest and best way to find info on your web host is to use WebHostingTalk. WHT is a really large and active web forum that discusses almost every area of web hosting that I can think of. If a web host exists, a review for them will be found there.
- Shared web hosts - If you are looking for reviews on shared web hosts, check out the general web hosting forum.
- Reseller web hosts - Need of some reseller hosting reviews? Check out their reseller hosting forum.
- Dedicated servers - They even have a section for dedicated servers if you need something to that scale. I use this forum when finding a suitable datacenter for my dedicated servers.
Analyzing the reviews
Don’t believe every review you read on this forum. Users often use WebHostingTalk to blackmail a web host by creating a ‘SoAndSoHosting sucks do not go with them thread’. I have also seen web hosts signup with a different user name and act like they are a satisfied client of the company. People definitely realize that WHT can either make or break a company. I have seen many companies become popular and successful through this forum.
So anyway, what I suggest you do is use the search function and find as many recent review threads you can on your web host selection. If 50% of them are good reviews, than it is probable the host is a good company. Even the best hosting companies in the world still have unsatisfied customers. Its just not possible to please everyone.
Unsatisfied customers will often go out of their way to make sure everyone knows about their bad experience. This is why you often see more bad reviews on companies than good.
Don’t believe web hosting review sites
One thing that I suggest you stay away from are those web hosting review sites. Most of them have motives for creating a review on a certain host. A lot of these sites use web hosting affiliate programs in order to make money on the sign ups they send to the host. So these reviews are often funded by the web hosting companies themselves making for a very biased review. For this reason, I suggest you stay away from them.
Just do your research and you will find that great web hosting provider. Spending 5 minutes now, will save you hours and hours of frustration and could also save you money if you monetize off your website.
Posts
Oct 11th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Great tips, I agree with the research.
Some things you forgot to mention was that Google is a great way of finding reviews on a web host. Normally Google will index the reviews so if you just search the company name, you should be able to find some reviews there.
Oct 13th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Finding sites that offer unedited user powered comments and reviews provide the best information as to real time hosting experiences.
Oct 14th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I agree with your post. I know from bitter experience that it is a good idea to research before you sign up. I was ripped off financially, and you wouldn’t believe how much time I’ve spent trying to get the web host in question shut down. I’ve also been getting rediculous headaches, probably from all the stress!.
You also have some very interesting articles. It’s nice to come across a blog that actually writes their own posts, rather than automatically copying content from other people!
The only criticism I have is that you have not removed your “no follow” links from WordPress. There is a plugin available that does it for you, and you will be helping other blogs build up their PageRank.
Thanks,
Mike.
Oct 27th, 2008 at 10:53 am
that answered my question about web hosting comparison/review sites… thanks, but fifty percent of good reviews from wht you think is reliable enough?
Jan 14th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
It seems like there are differing opinions as to who is the top host. From what I can see it seems like these are the top hosts(not in any specific order), do you agree?
Bluehost
Lunarpages
Hostgator
Startlogic
Hostmonster
Jan 17th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
When I first bought webhosting I though space was it all and “unlimited” was the best. I soon learnd from that mistake.
Jan 18th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
It can also be useful to make a google search like this “company name scam” this way you will get to know if there are really awful reviews about the site you are about to affiliate, lunarpages and hostgator are great
Feb 5th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Yeah, you really need to be careful of scams in this day and age. It seems every Joe Shmoe offers hosting and everythings unlimited and only $3.00 a month. There’s always a catch, and you need to do your research.