Web Hosting: Beware of Fake Review Sites

Published: August 22, 2012

When I started on the web you didn’t need anti-virus or firewalls, spam was rare, and most advice was well-intentioned. Things are not the same now, scams abound and malicious sites are getting better at hiding their real intent.

One example of this is the large number of fake reviews for web hosting companies. For example JustHost appears to have a 98% customer satisfaction rated on thetop10bestwebhosting.com. The site looks credible, but isn’t. How do we know? If we now search for a wide variety of sites talking about JustHost we discover some interesting points:

  • They pay sites a good whack for referring customers.
  • There are a large number of negative comments about them on forums and in reply to articles

top10best.jpg

As they say - caveat emptor - buyer beware. So how can we reduce the chance of landing with a bad host.

  • Don’t rely on just one or two sites for opinions.
  • If it looks too good to be true it probably is - How can a host be the fastest, give unlimited-everything, have the best customer service and be the cheapest?
  • Look for balanced reviews - “they’re the best in the world” should set off alarm bells.

Check out one interesting site I found that is sorting through and exposing bad hosts and reviews: Hosting Reviews Exposed

Comments:

Beware of 3owl and partner sites, They take your money and provide bad customer support and service.
I have documents of them blaiming me for there faults and nothing has changed in 6 months of down-time !

Posted by Richard Barrett on 1 May 2014