Two Possible Review Sources
If you search the Internet for reviews of the best website hosting companies, what you’ll find are reviews that fall into two categories:
- ACCURATE. Reputable reviews from trusted independent industry sources.
- MISLEADING. Biased fake reviews where the author was paid to skew the results in favor and/or against certain hosts. Some reviews have paid affiliate links, so no matter what host link you click, the person gets commissions when you sign up. Some of the information may be correct, but the review is generally intended to mislead. The list may include all the expected established hosting companies, and then an unfamiliar one that has paid the reviewer to be positioned in the review with the other well-known companies. These reviews typically lack the FTC legally required disclaimers for advertising.
Nobody Ever Got Fired for Recommending IBM
In the early days when computers were becoming mainstream, smaller, more affordable, and available to businesses, a frequently used adage was, “Nobody ever got fired for recommending IBM.” The point being that IBM was an established, reliable, reputable company with really solid equipment. It was expensive, but at least wouldn’t result in a system failure negatively impacting a business, resulting in someone getting fired. It was a safe choice.
The same can be said about top-tier hosting companies. They may be slightly more expensive, but hopefully the dependable service and responsive customer support can ensure a reliable website. If you choose from a list of top-tier hosting companies, you probably won’t be disappointed. Digging deeper into each company’s services, costs, and reputation can help guide your choice.
Top Hosting Company Reviews
Here are some current lists of top hosting companies.
- CNET – “The best web hosting for 2021” 6 Aug 2021. [View]
- PC Magazine – “The Best Web Hosting Services for 2021” 12 Aug 2021. [View]
- Tech Radar – “Best web hosting services of 2021: Top host providers for your website” 23 Aug 2021. [View]
- Tom’s Guide – “Best web hosting services in 2021” 26 Aug 2021. [View]
Even with the most reputable reviews of hosting companies, these reviews are written, and rewritten, and posted again, with better crafted SEO-focused titles, so as to drive traffic and readers to the sites where those lists can be found. It’s a common search term, and companies with seemingly fresh reports can expect lots of extra site visitors, thus boosting ad revenue and referral income. Some of these reports have no date in the URL, so the date is regularly changed to mislead search engines and readers into thinking the review is ‘current’ content.
The best review from those listed above is probably the CNET report which includes this statement:
“It’s important to note that we didn’t explicitly ‘test’ the web hosting provider options on this list. Instead, we compiled a competitive overview based on a variety of factors, including third-party ratings and features offered by each web hosting company and shared hosting provider. We’ve also weighted the rankings of each hosting solution by the Better Business Bureau and TrustPilot. With that data in hand, we split them into three tiers.”
Disclosure
This website and the document you are reading rely on WordPress.com hosting. I highly recommend WordPress.com for the simplicity, speed, and security of the hosting. It’s a great service for people who want to have a simple web presence. I do not make any revenue through WordPress.com referrals.
I also use DreamHost for more versatile and advanced hosting needs. I make no money referring people to DreamHost unless a person chooses to use my affiliate link [Click Here] in which case I would earn a one-time referral of $100 if you sign-up for the Shared Unlimited Hosting. I’d appreciate that. It helps cover my expenses, but you’re obviously not obligated to use my link, so I have no specific incentive to recommend any particular hosting service.
Understanding the Trusted Reviews
To better understand the trusted site reviews, read the full report. [View Full Report]