The purpose of my site is simply to target the unfair practices to manipulate traffic to hosting companies. That said not all reviews are bad, or for that matter have an agenda. But doing a search on a particular website ends up bringing you to one of what may be many affiliates who made their site look like a review. Hosting affiliates have flooded search engines with tons of useless information. The agenda is clear, they want you to buy from the company that they showcase, because they get a really high payout. Just try doing a search on x host sucks (x = name of host). Strangely these companies focus on the words suck, but there are hundreds of words that have a negative meaning in regards to service that sucks.
A perfect example is what I did with JustHost.com. I used the terms ‘ Just Host Sucks’. Two of their affiliates have use Google Adsense for that very term.
The first question you should ask yourself is:
If this site likes this webhost, are they hosting with them?
The way I find this out is by going to:
http://centralops.net/co/DomainDossier.aspx
Most of the websites that want you to host with the company they are promoting are not hosting with that company. So why should you host with them? Better yet how much are they being paid for your sale with the company.
Many of these hosting companies have sales as high as $70 – $125 or more per sale for annual or paid over time terms. Keep in mind most of these “So Called” unlimited cheap webhosting companies have account ranging around $3 – 6 a month. Webhosts that do this are paying more to their advertisers and affiliates then they are to operation costs to make sure you get the best possible webhosting solution.
Why would the site that refereed you getting more then what you paid the webhost you signed up for?
Better yet, why can’t you get paid for your own sign up?
For that you need to see the actual terms of the hosting company for their affiliate program. Not always is it guaranteed. Many of the affiliate programs I have seen only offer on the annual or greater term purchases. Some hosts like iPage.com consider retrieving a sale from an abandoned shopping cart a non-referral sale. There are other tricks, and not to mention affiliates are not the only way these companies bring in customers. There are sites like webhostingstuff.com and other top “so called” ranking websites. Who would you be more inclined to promote? Where you get a small percentage of a sale, maybe a reoccurring amount or a large pay out for a possible sale? The large payout is defiantly more enticing.
The best place I have found for hosting reviews is forums that are open to the public. No host is perfect, or for that matter perfect for everyone. But a good review will have documentation for their complaints or their praise. A review from someone that just signed up is not going to have a lot of weight if everything goes ok, it does not mean they will be happy days, weeks, months, or years later. Or that the company was not having a bad day the day that person signed up. But you can see a trend when there are multiple complaints upon the day of sign up.
One good indicator a site is a affiliate is that they have a special coupon for you to use.