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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Apr 2017
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    Where can I find honest REVIEWS on hosting services?

    Too many cheap hosts in the offer section and would have no idea who may be good.

    Is there any rating site around these days that keeps up with the latest hosting services and reviews them?

  2. #2
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    all are fake, affiliated websites.
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  3. #3
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    May 2020
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    There are lots of rating site around the web but as a customer we really don't know if those reviews are true. So if you're looking for a web host for your website just make a list of hosting company that suits your needs and ask them with some pre-sale questions.
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  4. #4
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    Jun 2018
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    https://foxcloud.net/ Data center solutions
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  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by FoxCloud View Post
    When you click a link to a host from that site you're letting them make money for that click. Hardly unbiased since they're likely to be influenced by revenue.

    The website you just visited provides you with access to products, offers and services from brands you love. This website has partnered with us, CJ Affiliate/Conversant, for the use of our advertising and analytics technologies (including cookies). In other words, the website owner may earn a commission when you make a purchase from a brand they help connect you with.

  6. #6
    You will struggle to find one (if any) by searching via Google. Top 10, 50, 100....and so on web hosts is a load of rubbish. If you are looking for a host you'd be better off finding some that fit your requirements and then searching in this forum for reviews, or recommendations on that host. You'll be sure to find more useful and honest information this way.

  7. #7
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    Most, if not all reviews are biased. They are either incentive driven or based on personal experience. Personal experience can vary widely from person to person. You might not get the same experience others had. This is why a provider who is the best for the most, might turn out to be another name of hell for you.

    Support is everything in this industry. Make a list of providers who have what you need. Then contact them using their support channel and ask a ew questions, even if those answers are presented on their website. How they answer should give you a lot of hints on whether they would be a good choice for you.
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  8. #8
    The only real way is to do your research. Don't listen to the top of Google.

    Ask people in forums such as this. Look for hosts that give you a full refund should you not like the service. The only real way to find out about a host is to try them. But if you have a money back guarantee you have nothing to loose apart from your time.

    Hope you find what you are looking for
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  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hangar View Post
    Too many cheap hosts in the offer section and would have no idea who may be good.
    Your best option would be to go through that section, pick a top 5 that look good to you (i.e. pricing, features, location). Then, take some time to research them here on WHT. Most companies that have been around for more than a couple years and that advertise here will have some mentions around the forum.

    WHT does verify reviews, you'll notice this after browsing around for a while - requests are made from the moderators for this.
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  10. #10
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
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    United Kingdom
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    Find your main priorities, as price, location, speed, support etc.
    This will narrow your search a lot. For example:

    "X cores VPS, storage space X, located in Asia under 20 EUR/month. Live chat support, new server deployment time less than 10 min etc."
    TOP dedicated hosting offers - https://bmcservers.com/dedicated-servers/

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Aug 2018
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    Novi Sad, Serbia
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hangar View Post
    Too many cheap hosts in the offer section and would have no idea who may be good.

    Is there any rating site around these days that keeps up with the latest hosting services and reviews them?
    This is a good, reasonable question, that is not very easy to answer. Why? Several reasons:

    1) The obvious one - Internet is full of affiliate (paid) reviews, with praises to hosting providers that pay most money for them, investing in marketing a lot more than they invest in the infrastructure, systems administrators and technical support.

    2) People and their priorities differ. I've recommended some providers that I've been happy with to friends, only for them to try, then go with another provider (also decent, I must say, but not my first choice, nor preference).

    3) Providers change - like any other business. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. So a review that is only a few months old could be no longer relevant. While no one can review all the hosting providers all the time.

    Having said all this, if someone put a gun to my head and insisted I recommend a review source, I'd suggest this list (and website, with some good, common sense hosting related articles) made by a WHT member kpmedia:
    http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/web-...web-hosts.html

    In addition to that, you can read user reviews on this forum - in the appropriate sections (whether you are looking for shared, reseller hosting, VPS...).

    With a note: generally speaking, the cheaper a hosting provider is, the more likely it is to have either poor quality service, or poor technical support (or both). There's no free lunch.
    If you don't need a lot of tech. support "hand holding" (i.e. are experienced), then you could find a cheap provider that has decent service quality, but tech support scope will only deal with specific noted problems related to the server/functioning, not with any problems caused by your website configuration (and, to make this even more confusing - not all the expensive providers tech. support will go to that length, or not always, of course).

    P.S. I see some replies here mentioning affiliate links. The source I linked to (above) does use affiliate links (i.e. they will get some money if you sign up with a hosting provider they recommend using a link from their website).
    However, for all I know, the list is not influenced by the amount of money paid by the providers (i.e. their recommendations align with my experience, and feedback I got from other people).
    So it's not black and white (I also use affiliate links when I recommend something I like and use, because it makes no sense not to do it - and I too get called out for "shilling" on occasions, because it often is hard to tell the difference).
    Detailed info about providers whose services I've used:
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  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Hangar View Post
    Too many cheap hosts in the offer section and would have no idea who may be good.

    Is there any rating site around these days that keeps up with the latest hosting services and reviews them?
    So many of these reviews sites are total BS. The high marks are either paid for directly or through affiliate commissions. I do think HostAdvice.com seems to be legit, otherwise, your peers on WHT and https://www.hostedtalk.com are your best bets.
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  13. #13
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    Sadly review sites are so bad these days it's really hard to find proper reviews on companies.
    We have been and always get asked from random sites for affiliate links in return for them putting us onto their website for reviews. Some of them clearly even state "the higher percentage of affiliate we will rank you higher". Sorry but I refuse to use any type of site or business who does it. The interesting thing is you often see on those sites the same few companies who are magically ranked in the top 5 on a bunch of other review sites.

    Personally I take reviews as a grain of salt.
    Over the years I find the best option with most services hosting related is contacting a few different companies with a list of questions, take all of their answers and out of 5-10 take the top 3 you liked, ask a few more questions or then dig deeper into reviews from those companies. Searching on here is a great option as they do their best to screen shady reviews here and for the most part I believe do a pretty solid job at it.

    I don't mind affiliate links for some things such as a Youtuber posting them for products they use, however for review sites it starts to get a bit shady. It's completely different if you use the service and tell others about it but when your whole site is focused around them it's fishy.
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  14. #14
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
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    I used to recommend searching here for reviews as most of them were at least cursorily vetted by the members here and sometimes even more so by the moderation and/or administration team.

    WHT hasn't been as busy as it used to be and reviews have become fewer and farther between.

    That isn't to say that WHT isn't still a resource - but it's not the resource it used to be. I wish I knew of a better location to advise looking for reviews that you could trust.

    Regardless of what reviews you find and how glowing they are - there is some general advice that you should take to heart no matter where you host your data:

    1. Always maintain your own off-provider copy of your data no matter who your provider is or what they promise.
    2. Don't spend more up-front than you're willing to lose. This means not signing up for 3 years to get a good deal unless you're willing to lose that up-front payment.

    So long as you follow this advice the worst you'll face is some downtime if your provider totally eats it and your total monetary loss will be minimized.

    It's often better to find medium-sized providers than to go with the huge companies or the new/tiny ones. Then again - so long as you follow the advice I've proposed you should be pretty well insulated against most issue.
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  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by MikeDVB MDDHosting View Post

    Regardless of what reviews you find and how glowing they are - there is some general advice that you should take to heart no matter where you host your data:

    1. Always maintain your own off-provider copy of your data no matter who your provider is or what they promise.
    2. Don't spend more up-front than you're willing to lose. This means not signing up for 3 years to get a good deal unless you're willing to lose that up-front payment.

    So long as you follow this advice the worst you'll face is some downtime if your provider totally eats it and your total monetary loss will be minimized.
    This 100% hands down best advice.
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  16. #16
    My way of telling if a review site is legit or not is when they recommend Bluehost, Godaddy and Hostgator.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
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    Kathmandu, Nepal
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    As someone who has been trying for almost a decade to do honest reviews. There are a few huge problems. The biggest one which many people mentioned is the payouts. Nearly every review site is corrupted by affiliate payouts or just straight up pay for placement. I get these offers all the time, I would guess almost every company that reaches a certain size does this either explicitly or implicitly with higher payouts for bigger affiliates.

    The second issue is data, how do you do 'honest' reviews when measuring a service of variable quality. Even the most well liked hosts, people will have bad experiences. Often review sites and forums are the place people go to complain. Is the volume of negative comments proportionate to customer base or disproportionate? Even companies like EIG/GoDaddy have happy customers, but almost everyone in a place like this would never steer you there. I don't think they are wrong to steer you away either, there are companies that are more well liked even with regards to customer base. But it's something to consider when evaluating different hosts. A lot of smaller companies may have a few very passionate advocates. I've had amazing service from 1-2 person operations where the owner is an absolute rockstar who goes above and beyond for their clients. But that doesn't scale. Every successful company is fighting declining quality as they become more successful.

    So what does an honest review look like? How many honest reviews does it take to get a meaningful picture of a company? How do you deal with the fact each type of review source (forums/communities like WHT, review sites, twitter comments, one-person opinions, etc) has it's problems?

    I don't know that you'll find an all encompassing answer. I've certainly got an opinion and approach but I'm well aware it has its limitations and is far from perfect. Just like every other way to evaluate companies. I think your best bet is looking around different options but keep in mind that every company has problems and I've never seen a company improve substantially as they've grown.
    Kevin Ohashi - Founder of ReviewSignal.com - Honest Web Hosting Reviews
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