I haven't really given hosting reviews much thought until a pre-sales question came up in my email today.

Another question is, I havent really seen much reviews on your hosting company in WHT.

First, to answer the above question, 80% of my customers come from my 4 year old community, visitors from my 8 year old website , word of mouth, referrals and real life friends of friends etc. and 20% from Google. I have 4 ecommerce sites who heard of my hosting service through WHT and they have been with me for over a year now. I don't actively promote my service in WHT either so it didn't really matter if I have a review or don't have a review in WHT.

Second, the question is: how important is a review to your sales growth and reputation? Do most of your customers come from WHT? Will no reviews make you an unreliable host?

Third, are the reviews in the webhosting forum voluntarily written or suggested by their host?

Answer is, it can be a factor but is certainly not critical, especially iin your case, you do have many established sources of leads.

I am sure some are suggested by their host but it's quite hard to prove those cases. Ours are typically self-voluntary, but not many really do post as a lot of our clients are corporates, business users don't really have time to post on forums all the time.

I believe in word-of-mouth. To me reviews seem rehersed and non-personal. I've been w/ my hosting company for 2 years and have several sites with them, some even professional sites. I think they are the best host around, and I only know of them because an old buddy of mine happened to mention he switched.