Shills in the web hosting industry
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What are shills?
Shills are people who try to trick other people into buying products or services that they own or are associated with. They often pretend to be users of their own products or services, misleading people into thinking that they're reading actual reviews. In auctions, they might bid on their own products to get other bidders to bid higher. Some shills are paid to recommend or speak positively about products or services as though they are satisfied customers.
Shills would rather lie to people than promote their products and services based on their merit. They see shilling as a shorter path to success than hard work and honesty. Some shills are young and haven't thought through the consequences of their actions. Others are older and don't care that their methods are fraudulent.
Types of shills in the web hosting industry
Because the web hosting industry is mainly online, web hosting shills do most of their shilling online. They shill in forums, in blogs, at review sites, and anywhere else they can post.
Shill reviewers
Shill reviewers mention their own company name or website whenever they can, using "they" language to try to disguise the fact that they're promoting their own company. They often include details about the service to try to make their endorsements sound legitimate, such as when they started hosting with the company and how fast the support is. Of course real users of the service may also include such details; only some reviews and recommendations are by shills.
Shills for hire
Shills for hire are a variation of shill reviewers. Instead of having the company owner or an employee doing the shilling, some shills hire other people to deceive the public for them. While these hired shills don't own the company they represent, they are affiliated with the company and try to hide this fact. This makes them as dishonest as shill reviewers who own or work for the company they shill.
Shill bidders
Domains, designs, and websites are sometimes sold via online auctions. The more bidders there are, the higher the price goes. Shill bidders place phony bids to drive up the price.
A well-publicized example of shill bidding happened with the domain auction site SnapNames. In 2009, a SnapNames employee was found to have bid in thousands of SnapNames auctions to inflate prices. [1] A class action suit was filed against the company because of the shill bidding of one employee.
How to watch for shills online
When you read positive comments about a provider in the web hosting industry, consider these factors:
- How long has the poster been a member at the community where the comments were posted? Of course new members can and often do post legitimate reviews, but length of membership is one factor to consider among others.
- How long has the company been in business? Look up the registration date for the company domain. New companies can of course have good reviews. But if the company is very new, reviews should be scrutinized more.
- What other reviews can you find for the company? If you see more positive reviews than you'd expect for the company (depending on how long it's been in business), suspicion may be warranted.
- Does the website where the review is validate reviews? Some websites, such as Web Hosting Talk, ask members to provide a domain hosted with the provider to verify that they have first-hand experience with the provider being reviewed or recommended. Some other sites don't take steps to try to verify reviews. Even when reviews are verified, they might be posted first, so look for an indication that the review has been verified.
If you suspect that a review may have been posted by a shill, report your concern to the website staff if possible, and either look for more information about the provider or look for a different provider. Even shills don't want to make decisions about services or products based on false recommendations.
Web Hosting Wiki article text shared under a Creative Commons License.
