If you have read any of the content on my site, you know that I bash most review sites because they are dishonest and they sell out faster than anybody else does out there. My goal is to provide you with the most accurate and honest information possible without selling out and allowing some hosting company to BUY my top spot from a company I trust with my own websites.
Using reviews of web hosting companies is a bit dangerous. Take InMotion, for instance. If you go to their website and go to the “compare us” page, it shows that nobody has ever posted a negative review on THEIR review site about them. Surprise, Surprise considering the monitor every single review. This doesn’t mean there haven’t been any negative review, they just don’t approve them.
Go ahead, try and post something negative about them on that site. They will never publish it. Believe me, I tested this and posted three reviews, one super negative, one with both pros and cons and one positive. The only one that got approved was the positive one. This is the politics of the hosting business and I know for a FACT that InMotion pays certain review sites to put them at the top of their list. They gave one review site 5% of the company just so they could maintain this position.
Getting the Positive out of Hosting Reviews
There is something you can get from reviews of web hosting companies, however. If you look through a good majority of customer reviews from a variety of sites and they are all saying something very similar, you may have something. For example, about two years ago many reviewers were complaining about BlueHost because their load times were super slow. They were experiencing a growing pain and needed to expand. They have since recovered, but at the time were receiving negative reviews consistent with the issue they were experiencing.
This does happen and you do need to be careful of hosting companies with too many negative reviews about the same thing. You also need to be careful of hosting companies with all positive reviews because none of them are perfect. They make mistakes and even if they didn’t, it’s impossible to please everybody with anything.
You could give everybody in the world a million dollars tax-free and somebody would find a way to complain. There are some people that just cannot be pleased and they post negative reviews of web hosting companies. This is something to be careful of, as well.
The best reviews are the ones that state both the pros and the cons. They will tell you the truth and maybe the cons don’t really affect your project much. This is the case quite often. I guarantee you can find a negative review about each of the top five hosting companies I have listed, but that is to be expected.
We reviewed hundreds of companies and decided we would list the top five based on our experience. When I say we, I mean myself and the other people in my network of internet marketing friends that gave me their opinions about hosting companies they use. You see, most of us have more than just one hosting account. In fact, I have 9 different accounts because I like to keep some of my sites separate and a few were just to test the waters with a new hosting company.
I carry accounts with all of my top five and they all treat me great. They all offer what they claim on their website and you will find negative reviews of all five of them. This isn’t that big of a deal as negative reviews happen. In fact, other hosting companies will pay people to post negative reviews about these companies.
How to Choose the Right Hosting
I could sit here and say the right hosting comes only from iPage, but that would be a lie. Yes, I love iPage hosting and I think they are the best, but FatCow, HostGator, GoDaddy and 1&1 hosting all have their place and they are excellent hosting companies. I could have listed 50 great hosting companies, but that would just make it harder on you.
My advice, go through the top five I have provided, choose the one that your gut tells you is the best for you. Some of them don’t fit with certain projects, but there’s a company for everybody there. Even if you need more than shared website hosting, you can use HostGator and they are awesome!
Read some of the reviews of web hosting companies out there, if you want, but I guarantee if you compare the top five I have on my site, you will find a company that will give you everything you need for an affordable price. They will provide you with excellent support and your project will have a solid foundation.
