Web Host Rating System: Our Objectives
We began working on our Web Host Rating System by setting up a list of objectives. We talked to Web Developers, Web Hosts, Host Finders, and others in our industry while adding our own years of experience to put together a long list of those things that are important to our selection process. We pared the list down into our basic objectives, as follows:

The Need For Fairness and Objectivity:
We are very sensitive to the objections that Web Developers, competing companies, and others have on the selection of the "best" Web Host, or the "best" anything. We believe that most other Web sites, including Host Finders sites, make a good faith effort to pick the best Web Host companies. But suspicion still creeps in from the general public. Fairness and Objectivity must be the number one goal when selecting the best company and the best services and we are intensely focused and committed to that goal. We have taken considerable time creating an easy to follow set of testing standards that make up our Web Host Rating System.

What are We Weighting For?
Every review is rated in six areas. These areas change from review type to review type. In other words, we do not grade a Host Finder with the same criteria we grade a Web Host. Our experience in the industry tells us to take this same process one step further. Just as the criteria changes between different review types, so too does scoring change between each area of evaluation.

Our scoring is "weighted." Some areas have a higher maximum number of points than others. For example: A Web Host's Support has a maximum score of 20 while their Features has a maximum score of 15. We believe that areas such as Support are more important than Features. When you get down to it, Support can be considered the foundation of a good Host and our we reward those Hosts whose support teams shine. By weighting these scores, we can emphasize each rating with more accuracy.


The Influence of Advertising Dollars: The forums and Newsgroups are replete with examples of complaints about various selections being influenced by advertising dollars or some form of payola or quid pro quo agreement. Because of that, our Web Host Rating System requires an independent panel to evaluate companies against one another. The most important aspect of our Web Host Rating System is that they remain objective and apart from any influence of advertising dollars or undue influence by our staff.

Independent Review Panel:
Our reviews are conducted by an Independent Review Panel. The panel is comprised of non-staff members who come from varying backgrounds and who have a good working knowledge of our industry. Furthermore, our independent review panel is not affiliated with any Web Host Related company.

Our Independent Review Panel has their hands full. Our Review Process currently covers Web Hosts, Host Finders, Domain Name Resources, Products, and Industry Related services. Here's a Brief Overview of each - Click on the link provided to see the review criteria.

Web Hosts
Web Hosts form the framework of the Internet by offering a place for you to setup you Web site are the Web Hosts. Web Hosts offer a variety of options and come in all flavors from E-Commerce to Server solutions. Web Hosts provide the foundation for a good Web site and therefore much attention should be paid when choosing one. For more information on the Web Host rating criteria click here.

Host Finder
Host Finders are defined as Web sites that help you find a Host. Simple enough. Most Host Finders offer a searchable database of Web Hosts or Host plans or both. This resource allows the Web Developer to select the options they are looking for in a Web Host and find the Host plans or Hosts that are best suited for their needs. Many Host Finders offer other resources as well. Common resources include tutorials on Web site publishing, programming helps, articles, news feeds, and industry articles. For more information on the Host Finder rating criteria click here.

Our Process:
Each month we begin with over 100 service and product companies. Our Independent Review Panel studies how they stack up using our criteria. Every company we review receives a Web Host Rating based on the integer average of the individual scores each company receives from our Review Panel. Companies are chosen for an in-depth review based on this preliminary score as well as reader requests.

About our Method:
We have a great deal of experience in this area. Our methods are proven. They were developed by two of our senior staff members who jointly and successfully developed these techniques from their years of experience training and overseeing the operation of technical services, technical support, and customer support departments handling upwards of two million customers over the last 20 years in PC related companies.

Our Method:
Depending on the review type, support teams are questioned, uptime and network connectivity is tested, products are used, and services are sampled. A great deal of time is spent on each review making sure it is the best we have to offer. Objectivity and fairness are the watchwords our review panel lives by.

No matter what review type, our reviewers send in scores for each criteria. The scores are then tallied up and averaged. The maximum possible score for one of our reviews is 100, as yet no one has reached that high on our scale, but we will keep looking. Reviewers’ comments and critiques are also included with each review. We have also spent much time on developing our review format. Each review includes a Overview, Verdict, Pros, Cons, and, when possible, comments from the forums and from the company themselves. The Overview for a review is the culmination of the data found during our reviews. We try to make sure that every pro and con is explained in this section. Our Verdict section shows what we think about the companies’ service or product. Our Pros and Cons sections are designed to show a quick breakdown of what we liked and what we did not like about the companies product or service. As stated previously, the statements found in our Pros and Cons sections are briefly explained in the Overview section.

Lastly, we will hunt down comments from the company whose services or products we are reviewing as well as customer feedback. In order to maintain our high standards for objectivity we comb the forums and get a hold of customers and company execs alike in order to give our reader as much information as possible.

We don’t have to do it this way. We could be like others and spend a minimal amount of time on our reviews and we would certainly have more reviews up there if we did. But we feel that that would be cheating our reader out of honest and objective information. At Web Host Magazine & Buyer's Guide our job is to aid you the reader in your search for a better service and better products.

Web Host Magazine & Buyer's Guide is proud to feature our Reviews and it is our hope that these reviews help you. Happy Hunting!