Reviews and Web Host Magazine

I often get asked a variety of questions about our reviews. A quick sample include, how come my Host has not been reviewed? How come it takes so long for a review? It has been a while since you added new reviews are you still reviewing Hosts? So on and so forth. So I will answer these questions here for everyone.

It’s Been a While Since you Added New Reviews, are you still Reviewing Hosts?
This is a very good question. We are still reviewing Hosts, however recently I have been back in the research lab looking at revamping our criteria. This will be a complete overhaul of how we look at our reviews. In fact there will probably be fundamental shifts in scoring, weighting of scores, how we go about reviewing, how we determine the Industry Standard, and choosing reviewers.

Also we are looking into making the process more streamlined and transparent. Reviews should be able to be used as a tool for the Web Developer when researching new Hosts and it should also be useful for the Host as a sort of free audit of their service so they can create a better hosting experience.

I will talk more about all of this though once we have finished testing.

What is the Industry Standard?
The Industry Standard is a handy term we use to determine what the average is and then use that as a basis of comparison. You can say that the industry standard is our control group. Companies who exceed this standard get higher ratings in various areas. Companies who fall short get lower ratings.

Each community (Web Hosts with enough things in common can be grouped together into a community, much like how we have SUV’s, trucks, mini-vans, and sedans in the car industry) has their own Industry Standard. You could never compare a dedicated server host to a low cost Unix host, just won’t work that way.

One of the things we are currently working on is expanding the Industry Standard value set to encompass the majority of all Web Hosts in operation. A lofty goal for sure, but the project is moving steadily and once it is finished we will have the ultimate control group for comparisons.

How Can I Trust Your Reviews?
Although we coined the term Independent Review staff for the Web Host industry it seems everyone nowadays is parading their own "independent review group." In fact, there is one that even cut and pasted every article off our site to include our review criteria without bothering to remove our name from any of it.

I could talk forever on this subject. Because of that I will just say the main points. We don’t sell our reviews… that’s what banners and showcases are for. We don’t go against the trust of our readers. Our reviews have links in them, none of which run any sort of script or go through an affiliate program. We have links in the reviews so that you can go and check out the company for yourself.

In a subjective, service-oriented industry it is very hard to be 100% right for every type of Web developer out there. We developed a set of criteria in order to make the subjective become more objective and to quantify the companies based on merit.

How Can I Help?
We read over our reader reviews in the final processing of a review. If there are problems that were talked about in the reader review we do our best to recreate the scenario and see how the host handles it.

Another way to help in the process is to drop us a line. Tell us about your Host or what you look for in a Host. What things are most important to you? After all, we don’t evaluate Hosts for our own benefit we do so for yours.

How Come my Host Has Not Been Reviewed?
The review process can take several months therefore we sadly cannot get to every Host. This is another reason why we are updating our review criteria and our review process. However, if you wish to have your Host reviewed simply drop us a line and we will add them to our review queue.

What’s Up with Your Reader Reviews?
The back end for adding Reader Reviews is in place; you can add either a short or long review. But we are still evaluating how best to weed out fraudulent reviews. Examples of this include Hosts who review competitors, giving them low scores and Hosts whose employees review themselves and set the scores to max. As soon as we finish getting the evaluation layer in place we will release the Reader Review database for perusal… and it’s pretty big too I might add.

If you have any other questions feel free to ask, and who knows we might even share the questions and the answers with everyone else so that all can benefit. Until next time, happy hosting!