THE PROBLEM

Web hosting review sites have a less-than-stellar reputation within the technology industry. Unfortunately, that view is not without merit.

The vast majority of top 10 website hosting sites that provide reviews are affiliate sites — including this one. We are paid a commission when a visitor referred from our site purchases hosting. If not for affiliate commissions, it is unlikely that many review sites would even exist.

While there is nothing to prevent affiliate sites from providing honest reviews — the unfortunate fact remains — it is faster, cheaper, and easier not to. Purchasing hosting services and setting up test sites takes time and costs money. Using third-party testing services to evaluate the quality of those services takes even more time and costs even more money.

Therefore, all too many affiliate sites simply skip to the review writing part. That can be done quickly, cheaply, and easily.

Further complicating the matter is the fact that some of the worst hosting companies pay some of the highest affiliate commissions in order to counter poor word of mouth. This of course, encourages less-than-reputable affiliates to post positive evaluations of low-quality hosts.