"HostingDiscussion.com Approved" hosts

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GridVirt

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What would be cool if HD had a special forum for "HostingDiscussion.com Approved" hosts. Let me explain a little. This section would be only for hosts that have been tested and reviewed by experienced HD staff. This gives a little added insurance and peace of mind. You could offer clean links and affiliate links to the approved hosts. Those that want to help HD out can use the affiliate links and those allergic to affiliate links can use the clean links.

Just an idea :)


MOD NOTE: Post moved from http://www.hostingdiscussion.com/web-hosting-requests/1835-choose-your-host-carefully-users.html
 
GridVirt, I moved your post from an old thread to its own, because it makes more sense to discuss your idea separately.

I'd like to hear other people before I offer my own opinion on your idea.

Thanks for thinking of HD. :)
 
I love the idea, there are a lot of review sites out there that don't review and simply list their affiliates to gain money.

But, if you do that art, make sure you have a disclaimer saying that even thought the hosts are tested you do not endorse them and are not responsible for whatever happens as good hosts can change and become bad or sell out or lots of other stuff.

But, I like the idea and would like to see it. Also, have a voting option to where users can vote a host in so there is no need for a staff to approve of one. If the community loves a host, why test it?
 
I agree with the allowing votes but not entirely with "If the community loves a host, why test it?". For a few different reasons:

1. Large online communities like HD tend to have internal politics that are not always in plain site which could influence this in a negative way. Not saying that is the case here but it is on many other large forums especially when hosting is the topic.

2. Sometimes a host is popular just because they "used" to be good. Lets take example HostGator and GoDaddy. Neither of them offer a great service anymore but they are still extremely popular. This is misleading to the inexperienced end-user.

Just my 2 cents.
 
I don't think it would be a good idea for a forum to have an official list of "approved/good hosts".

For one, a forum gets revenue from advertising. If you recommend 10 hosts over all others, you end up with fewer advertisers willing to pay for ad space.

If one of the "approved" hosts gets a complaint, moderating that thread could become a mine field. As soon as you would touch it, accusations of foul play will emerge.

Lets take example HostGator and GoDaddy. Neither of them offer a great service anymore but they are still extremely popular.
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Godaddy never had a good reputation for hosting, as far as I remember. Hostgator still hosts my sites, and I've no complaints.

Nevertheless, huge advertising budgets can do wonders with visibility and popularity in top hosts sites.
 
Godaddy showered the web with "good reviews" when they started to grow. Anybody that knows better knows that their hosting is sub-par. For hostgator their hosting is solid for shared but their VPS are overpriced and only give "ok" performance.

People are very interested in real and well done reviews and even more in benchmarks. Combine both and the increased traffic that forum would bring, I believe would offer more than enough traffic on a smaller number of ad spots to make it worthwhile over more ad spots with less traffic.

I would not allow threads to be only voted on to aviod the inevitable arguing and squabbling. Maybe not even offer voting. If the reviews are well done and maybe re-reviewed every year people will trust your choices.
 
I think it would be an OK idea, however I can see this going downhill in a hurry if not properly managed.

If the reviews could be vetted some how, either by confirmation from the host that the person is truly a customer and not a "spam" bot sending out false reviews either positive or negative this may help prevent some abuse.

However, I don't think that Art should accept payment to be listed in the directory. I've always been extremely suspicious of any listing in large "hosting" directories as most are just filled with "who has the biggest advertising budget".

I also would not allow voting for threads either. This as others have stated, could cause infighting and bickering. An idea, although probably a cumbersome one, would be to make a directory with the hosts, then have a forum section for that approved host for the reviews and complaints to be handled in.

Regards,
AB
 
agentblack said:
I think it would be an OK idea, however I can see this going downhill in a hurry if not properly managed.

If the reviews could be vetted some how, either by confirmation from the host that the person is truly a customer and not a "spam" bot sending out false reviews either positive or negative this may help prevent some abuse.
Click to expand...

The same process WHT use could be adopted.

If you place a review about a host you need to use the report link to provide the IP and domain hosted, so that the forum mods can verify you are/were hosted with the host.
 
The original idea was for the reviews to be done only by HD staff. This improves credibility and ensures proper reviews/benchmarks.
 
GridVirt said:
The original idea was for the reviews to be done only by HD staff. This improves credibility and ensures proper reviews/benchmarks.
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my reply was in direct response to what agentblack stated.

yes the original idea was for HD staff to carry out the review, but this would be a hard task to carry out by HD staff, as for a true review HD staff would have to be given a hosting account on every host to be reviewed for at least a month
 
It being a hard task is exactly what makes it worthwhile. It is rarely done and most sites/communities just let the users post which is the "easy" way. I believe this idea would greatly benefit HD. Right now HD is basically the #2 hosting community behind wht. WHT is horribly corrupt and riddled with internal politics with bans being handed out to anybody that poses a threat in competition to anybody that wht is affiliated with...it's ridiculous. I think with some fresh ideas such as this HD can rise up and take a piece of what WHT has. This is why I am adamant about this idea. If you want the rewards you need to work for them.
 
GridVirt said:
It being a hard task is exactly what makes it worthwhile. It is rarely done and most sites/communities just let the users post which is the "easy" way. I believe this idea would greatly benefit HD. Right now HD is basically the #2 hosting community behind wht. WHT is horribly corrupt and riddled with internal politics with bans being handed out to anybody that poses a threat in competition to anybody that wht is affiliated with...it's ridiculous. I think with some fresh ideas such as this HD can rise up and take a piece of what WHT has. This is why I am adamant about this idea. If you want the rewards you need to work for them.
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i never disagreed, just stated it would be a hard task. i am fully aware of how WHT hands out bans after a WHT user threatened me on WHT and when i complained about this i was the one banned and this abuser still a member.
 
The disclaimer is the key in my own opinion. I have seen other sites try to do this and after the first six months it all falls apart because people get confused by who said what and who endorses what.
 
I"m 50/50 on the idea. I like the idea initially, but I think maintenance is going to be a big factor. Web hosts change over time and some months are worse than others. It would pretty much require ongoing management to make sure the host is in good standings. A web host that is good today, but suffers major down time 3 months from now probably shouldn't get gold stars. The same can be said for a host that had an issue 4 years ago. Are they still a good host? Probably, but that issue can leave a mark.

Much like the GoDaddy issue - they're a big company. They have millions of users, hundreds of servers, thousands of complaints. Size needs to be factored into the rating along with age of a company, number of clients, churn rates etc etc. Maintaining such a list is going to be a lot of work.
 
handsonhosting said:
Much like the GoDaddy issue - they're a big company. They have millions of users, hundreds of servers, thousands of complaints. Size needs to be factored into the rating along with age of a company, number of clients, churn rates etc etc. Maintaining such a list is going to be a lot of work.
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I think this is a major factor as take this as a senario


1) Godaddy has millions of users, hundreds of servers, thousands of complaints.
so lets say Godaddy get 1000 complaints in a 12 month period, to Godaddy this will have no effect or even show on their scales, so they will carry on as nothing has happened.

2) Joe Blogs has 2000 users, 3 servers, a few complaints.
so lets say Joe Blogs get 500 complaints in a 12 month period, to Joe Blogs this a quarter of their userbase and will have a major impact on his reputation.
 
Exactly.

The larger the host, the more the complaints - it's the basic laws of business. There's always going to be someone unhappy, and no matter what you do to resolve a situation, there'll still be someone bitter.
 
Well, thank you everyone for voicing your opinions. I appreciate it.

Personally, I am of the same opinion as Dan (a.k.a ldcdc). HostingDiscussion is a professional community. We are neither a non for profit organization nor a certification institute to qualify any hosting company or put our stamp of approval on it. We are meant to provide the platform for communication and for the public to discuss, improve and challenge companies. We want our members and guests to make up their own minds and come to their own conclusions with the information available.

For us to start endorsing companies, irrelevant of the fact that we find a way to verify them, would be the end of retaining the neutrality we enjoy. We will lose the informational value as a resource and gain a sentiment of being a "top 10"-like website.

Apart from it all, I've spent years thinking about what makes a perfect review system. Unfortunately, I came to a realization that no such way exist. Too many variables in play. Some of you mentioned a few already. So no matter how many resources we allocate or how many people we assign to a review team, the end result, apart from being subjective, will also never guarantee reliability or good experience with a hosting provider. Which sort of defeats the purpose.
 
First, I saw a reply here about WHT doing verification, but I've seen very little of that there (my perception).

I agree with Artashes. Hosts change over time. Take NPSIS for example - they had horrific customer support until Hostirian bought them. Hostirian kept the brand of NPSIS and turned that company completely around.

What about providers that change datacenters in an effort to upgrade their services? Do bad reviews one or two years ago still count against them?

How would anyone know how many servers any hosting provider actually manages or how many unique complaints they field?

There's no way any hosting discussion forum staff could ever hope to monitor that.

While I think the intent of the suggestion is honorable, there's no way this could be administered correctly (just my opinion).
 
And Steve, just imagine the scale of the operation itself. There are literally 1000s of web hosting companies out there. What if we receive 50, 100, 500 requests to be verified? How do we deal with that volume? How do we control/maintain the information? How we do remain fair and objective to all? There are just so many problems with this grand plan that it has to be done on the highest level by all hosting companies involved (as in they pay an association membership fee in order to support that kind of platform and organization) if they want to gain a seal of approval or appear more credible in the eyes of consumers. I am just afraid if done on a private level, this kind of verification will never live up to its credibility.
 
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