I am sure that I am not the first person to suggest this but, especially in view of my recent experiences with a host whose level of service left a great deal to be desired, that there should be a Industry Standard for Web Hosting.

I envisage that hosts would have to comply to these standards in order to display some kind of logo.

By identifying themselves as members of 'The Guild of Quality Web Hosts' clients would know that they are buying quality hosting from a reputatbly source.

Would any of the experience hosts that post here be prepared to comment or be interested in setting up such an organization?

Actually there was a 'web host guild' started in 1988, http://www.whg.org/ that originally started this way (in theory), then turned into something else. Site is now defunct.

A grassroots type hosting organization has also been discussed (search for 'grassroots' and you should be able to find the thread), but due to the various problems, was never followed through.

I'll let you read the thread as to why. Organizations such as the BBB provide similar 'seals of approval' but carry the same problems. It is a good idea, in theory mostly.

Hmmm... Web Host Guild doesn't seem to be there anymore.

You had to wonder how long it would survive, given that the high membership fees and relatively low profile -- hosting consumers never have heard of it -- as well as the fact that the membership requirements exclude most of the small hosts that were where the industry growth has been, it must have been losing money and probably not really bringing any benefit to the large hosting companies that founded and funded it.

So Chicken, what should be the minimum standards a host should adher too?

So Chicken, what should be the minimum standards a host should adher too? As Chicken says, there've been long discussions of that here. I think this is the thread he was referring to above:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=12366

There's a link within that thread to an even older one on basically the same topic, if you want to dig farther.

Originally posted by JayC
Hmmm... Web Host Guild doesn't seem to be there anymore.

You had to wonder how long it would survive, given that the high membership fees and relatively low profile -- hosting consumers never have heard of it -- as well as the fact that the membership requirements exclude most of the small hosts that were where the industry growth has been, it must have been losing money and probably not really bringing any benefit to the large hosting companies that founded and funded it.
<RANT>
The Web Host Guild was a sham "organization" owned by Jonathan Caputo, who also founded the totally-discredited "Ultimate Web Host List."

The Ultimate Web Host List was a website that claimed to rate hosts, but where hosts really paid for their high ratings. It got very popular, and Caputo sold it to c|net and continued to run it for them. c|net took the Ultimate Web Host List offline after the December '99 ***** melt-down. They'd had ***** in their top five for years, and were flooded with complaints. Caputo took *****'s name of their list of WHG "Charter Members" at that time, only to put it back after the furor died down several months later.

The WHG was nothing more than a tool by which many large webhosts that offered below average service, including *****, Tri Star Web, and Virtualis, could attempt to make a claim of legitimacy by paying Caputo to attach their business names to his sham organization.
</RANT>

Jeeze -- how many typos can she squeeze into one little post?

Originally posted by privatebox
I am sure that I am not the first person to suggest this but, especially in view of my recent experiences with a host whose level of service left a great deal to be desired, that there should be a Industry Standard for Web Hosting.

I envisage that hosts would have to comply to these standards in order to display some kind of logo.

By identifying themselves as members of 'The Guild of Quality Web Hosts' clients would know that they are buying quality hosting from a reputatbly source.

Would any of the experience hosts that post here be prepared to comment or be interested in setting up such an organization?

If every host follows the same rules then everyhost will have the same support and service, but I don't see where competition comes in. That's what makes all host unique. The service and prices differ.

Well, it's not that every host *has* to follow the same rules, rather that hosts would have to adhere to minimum standards (trying to come up with these is a disaster in itself), in order to earn their Cub Scout 'Hosting Merit Badge'. :D

In theory, it makes sense, but in practice, those threads that you can follow will detail some of the problems with these types of organizations. Basically, the BBB is just about the best example of this almost working, though it has problems too.