The idea behind this website was very simple one. Offering just basic information about web hosting providers and leaving the reviews in the hands of the visitors looked very attractive. However when this website was born (in August of 2006) only negative reviews were “puring” in. It was hard to decide on whether or not keeping all of the bad reviews on this website or try to some how filter the valid complains from the comments by the people who have nothing better to do. It may ave been against my best judgment, but initially I have decided to leave all the reviews. There was no clear way telling apart valid complaints and rants by the dissatisfied customers from the rest of the negative review. However over the time I have discovered certain pattern in how these negative reviews were written. It appears that authors of negative reviews can be divided in following three groups:
- Some times clients bad experience with a particular web hosting provider from the very beginning. This dissatisfaction is never a result of one particular thing. Generally it is a combination of things that transpire from time they have committed to a particular plan. It may not necessarily mean that a particular web hosting provider is terrible. Even the best web hosting providers are not without faults. However if you seen an overwhelming amount of complaints against one particular provider, it should serve as warning light to investigate further before committing your money.
- More than often negative reviews would come from clients who in general were satisfied with the web hosting service they received. However they did not have the best experience when they have attempted to solve a problem with their web hosting provider. A company may offer a web hosting that is not reliable. But a company may as well be shooting itself in the foot, by offering bad customer service or by not offering one at all. More than one dissatisfied client will be very happy to hear that his web host is doing all that can be done to fix the problem.
- Finally this website have seen plenty of “grasshoppers”. The leave both negative or positive reviews just because they have an opportunity to leave a link. Elsewhere these are called spammers, but my fancy prefers “grasshoppers”. These comments do not stand a chance from being deleted from this blog. While I am sure I have missed one or two, I hope the readers of this blog can recognize these “grasshoppers” point them out to me.
I know that the above list is very general, but I believe it provides some good insight into the negative reviews you find here on this blog, or on other websites that offer opportunity to every visitor to leave feedback.
So what should you make off the negative reviews? It is important to place them in the proper prospective. Some complaints may not be valid at all in your situation. For example, you can see more than one complain that certain web hosts have CPU usage issues on the websites that powered by PHP and MySQL. While some clients may see at as a problem, for some it may not be an issue since they will code their website in good old HTML.
Should you then ignore the negative reviews? Absolutely not, because you can benefit greatly from them. What you need to do is to write an itemized list of all the features you are looking for in your future web hosting provider. Having such a list you can look and see how many negative complains a particular web hosting provider received against each item in your list. Bad web hosting reviews can indeed prove to be very beneficial if you know how to use them.
Comments on this entry are closed.
I have seen how patient guys at dreamhost are
they are always ready to solve even the silliest of our questions and they love to take on more questions..
they have been highly trained to be the best and behave well with all
Well this was a surprise to find. I’m having terrible customer service from xionhosting.net. Despite numerous phone calls (long distance!) and emails, they have not had the courtesy to reply in any shape or form……
I’m just concerned as I got a package thing and not sure what will happen if I move the site to another host…..
Great Review about web hosting. You have cover every aspect of hosting with comprehensive detail. You have cover lots of ways and also have a variety.
I do think the customer support team of web hosting providers should be more patient when answering question, it is always be the support team who create the bad experience of their customers.
Amazing to see Martin from Zyon ( zyon.com ) on this forum. I had completely rude and harassing service from him. Individually, his service was the rudest I have ever had from a host. Moverover, his company gave me false information and refused to give details about the company. I am reporting them to the Arizona Better Business and PayPal. Avoid the company.
Webhostinginformation.net is the excellent site!
This website is a complete resource that offers you useful web hosting information and reviews. Apart from this, you would also come across loads of helpful articles that guides you how to choose better hosting plans, how to arrange shopping carts, how to make use of database and lot more.
Excellent post and an awesome blog. Very thorough and technical. Just the way I like it. You’ve got a phenomenal layout and design. Kudos!
Kind regards,
Martin
The approach i take with websites is to look around and read as many reviews as possible. Also look at overall rating on rating websites. If the host is good the rating will usually be above 6 even if they are small and have had a few customers who have been causing problems. Good article.The approach i take with websites is to look around and read as many reviews as possible. Also look at overall rating on rating websites. If the host is good the rating will usually be above 6 even if they are small and have had a few customers who have been causing problems. Good article.
This is a good approach, most of the web hosting review sites out there are basically filled with marketing material, there isn’t actually a place for honest and genuine opinion (except found in some webmaster related forums).
Keep up the good work !