Finding a Web host
Photo by channah

One of the most important things while researching web hosts is to look at current and former users reviews. Look at what is happening for users that are currently using the host. Today I will be sharing with you how to find reviews for hosting companies and how to use this to help you compare hosts.

Finding Reviews

Don’t just look at the hosting company’s testimonials, they are only going to post what makes them look good.

Start by looking at review sites. Don’t look at the web site’s review itself I find these are sometimes old or just basically paid for ads. Find reviews of people who have used the host current users and former users. Here is just a few review sites you can find reviews:

Another great tool for finding more information about a host is twitter. If you do a search on twitter how many users do you see complaining about a problem? How many tweets do you see about people talking about how great their host is, but make sure they say why the host is great and make sure it’s not a sponsored ad.

Also check places like the Better Business Bureau for complaints about the company.

Things to consider when looking at the review:

Age of review
Hosts change their business plans, customer service, and prices all the time. You want to make sure you look at the age of the review and make sure you look at current ones. You can look at the past ones too because they are going to give you some insight on what has happened in the past for this host which may come up again. But see if they have changed their ways and improved since the problem.

Quantity of Reviews
How many good and bad reviews do they have? What is the percentage of good to bad? Do they have a lot of reviews? How long has the site been around? Do people feel that they are getting a service good enough to talk about? Or bad enough? I would usually recommend a host that has been around for a while. They obviously are doing pretty good business and know what they are doing. But if you can find an amazing deal try out a new company. I personally like my host and pay more for the fact I can email the owner and I have a relationship with them. I’m not just a number. Sometimes personal attention is just worth more.

Bad Review May Give You Insight
Looking at the bad reviews may give you insight on what to watch out with on this host. If the person was having troubles with customer services you know that if you have troubles getting a hold of customer service during your trial period that this may become a chronic problem. If they have complaint that they have a lot of downtime, watch out for your site going down. You can also ask the sales people do they have back up servers for when their is an issue? How do they handle this issue? Do they let you know if there is a problem and will contact you as soon as it is fixed?

This concludes our series about researching web hosts. I hope you learned some things that will help you in your search for a host. I personally have struggled with bad hosting companies and have enjoyed using my current host. I hope that you will find a host that you love and is the perfect fit for you.

If you have found a host that you love please share it with me in the comments! I’m always happy to hear about a great host I can send my clients, friends and followers to!

Previously in the series:

 

Written by

Pepper Ferguson

Hi I'm Pepper. My family and I are sharing pieces of our lives.
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