I believe authenticity of web hosting reviews but only by very reputated bloggers who shares their true experience with the web hosts.
So there are two levels to be resolved, first to find a reputed, reliable blogger and than through him a good service provider.
Oh this is a good poll. If you are refering to review SITES, as in the entire website…the answer is no. I have seen sites set up to where someone like my mom would not know that it is obviously set up by hostgator or netfirms or godaddy. in that case the review site is biased. You can also tell because it pretends to take comments and has a comment box but no comments have been accepted. Anyone who does not agree with the “review” cannot be heard.
On the other hand there are True review sites where everyone can be heard and you can see a long list of both negative and positive comments. A bad host will have mostly negative ones. At the top there will be nothing but an introduction of the host and then will follow comments by ordinary people. sure some staff of the host will comment but in that case there will be Hundreds of comments and rankings so it will be impossible for them to hide the fact that it is either Good or Bad host- no hiding it.
The more reviews a host has on one of these sites, the more likely I’ll be to believe the reviews.
A host with just one review, which of course says it’s the most excellent hosting ever, isn’t really very reliable.
A host which has tens, if not hundreds of reviews averaging out as ‘good’, is much more realistic in my opinion.
A host which has tens, if not hundreds of reviews averaging out as ‘good’, is much more realistic in my opinion.
In theory, and probably in general, that holds true. However, I know of a (well known) host that gave its employees free hosting accounts, and then asked them to post positive reviews on various sites, posing as customers. The review verification method (if there is one), usually involves the reviewer sharing a site/domain that he’s hosting with the reviewed host. Clearly these “customers” could pass the verification.
I believe that you can start at a review site but you have to narrow it from there by doing some detailed searches. If you see a provider that has mostly good reviews or a good number of them then take a few minutes and look at their actual company site. Many providers also offer live chat now so it is relatively easy to ask support and customer service a few questions that may be more telling than reviews.
Many providers also offer live chat now so it is relatively easy to ask support and customer service a few questions that may be more telling than reviews.
That’s definitely a good idea. It helps get a feel of the company without spending a dime yet. However, “company” is a bit much, because you’re really dealing with one out of possible hundreds of techs. Also, live chat is mostly manned by level 1 techs. Some of them may be bright individuals, but they still have a lot to learn. Steve Jobs may not be around anymore, but you still wouldn’t talk to any Apple employee and judge the company based on that.
As per the question asked in the poll
Do you believe in authenticity of Review Sites
No! At least not the “Top Ten” list type of sites designed by affiliates or, even worse, designed and self promoted by a web hosting company.
Webhostingtalk is still a good place to find real reviews.
Dang, you made me look up “Je ne sais quoi.” (An intangible quality that makes something distinctive or attractive) - makes sense. I do trust forum reviews much more than review sites, but recently I’ve seen a ton of reviews that never get verified. Even so, after being around hosting for awhile, it’s fairly easy to determine which is real or fake.