Review: WebHostingGuide - your guide to web hosting

Hosting is one of those aspects that you can't afford to not understand. One of the hardest things to do is compare hosts and combine them with user reviews; you put a lot of faith in hosts to deliver maximum uptime, decent customer service and realistic usage limits.  To help raise awareness of their site, WebHostingChoice have paid for this sponsored review.

WebHostingChoice.com is a website dedicated to providing a direct comparison between a good number of US hosts. While the hosts are limited to being US only, the comparison chart on the homepage offers a reasonable indication as to how the hosts generally perform. Metrics such as price, setup costs, whether you get a free domain, bandwidth allowance, storage allowance and money back guarantee. There's also a "score" assigned to each host.

Clicking through to read the review for each host allows you to see more information on the package offered; up-time guarantees, control panel, langauge support, SSL support and further breakdowns for costs.

It's comforting to see companies scored in such a way, but I'd like to see some reviews of how the hosts handle their customers - often customer support can make me go with a more expensive supplier simply because I know my account is handled properly. There's nothing worse than paying your bills and still feeling like an anonymous chump when something goes wrong.

WebHostingChoice don't cover *all* hosts, as my guys (Dreamhost) aren't included at all, so I wouldn't take it as impartial and complete.

The other reason that makes me question the advice is that most of the links are set up in a way that makes me believe it's affiliate generated - so clicking through to sign up with a host would profit WHC. While I'm entirely for people generating profit from their sites, it does make me raise an eyebrow as to whether "Host A" is really the best or they're being touted as the best purely to increase the chance of an affiliate sale (when Host A offers a higher CPA than Host B).

Other than that the site is perfectly usable and helpful (albeit less than aesthetically glorious), the information is certainly a good starting point. I'd recommend taking the advice with a pinch of salt and reading more reviews before committing to a host.

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