Any smart Web hosting customer is going to do a fair bit of shopping around before they make their decision; it's just too easy to do with most of that shopping taking place online. But when researching your purchase, it can be difficult for a hosting customer to distinguish the real, valuable information from the biased, unreliable or even outright incorrect.
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Most shoppers would understandably start with a Google search, but a simple unspecific search for "Web hosting" turns up all kind of sources for information: paid Google listings, regular search rankings (the high ones all generated by concentrated SEO campaigns), links to hosting "review" sites and links to commentary in other venues such as hosting-related forums.
While once upon a time paid search listings were a questionable resource, they have evolved into a very reliable means for searchers to find what they need. Particularly in a category with high PPC rates, such as Web hosting, high paid positioning has become almost a badge of legitimacy. At the very least, it's an indication that a company is willing to spend dozens of dollars per click just to attract prospective customers. At the very least, it's a definite indication that your business is valuable to them, and that they have a budget to spend on ads. Paid Google ads are actually a great place to start.
Further research into a company you've taken an interest in may turn up long negative message board threads or "Ihatecompany.com" or "companysucks.com" type sites. Those can be valuable indicators of the kind of troubles with service or reliability a company might have had and, in the case of message board threads, they can be a good indicator of how a company goes about dealing with those problems. But bear in mind that the upset customers are always going to be more vocal online than the satisfied ones. A company may have many satisfied customers and only a few unsatisfied, but the satisfied customers rarely take the time to seek out a venue to express that satisfaction.
The other side of that particular coin is the positive "reviews" to be found on many sites around the Internet. It's possible that there are altruistic people out there posting honest and objective reviews of Web hosting companies out there, but the business model for many of those sites is pay-for-placement, like Google's paid listings, but without the up-front integrity. And the widespread use of that business model makes it pretty impossible to distinguish which sites might be posting "real" reviews.
A good rule of thumb, when reading outside feedback on a Web hosting company, might be to assume that negative reviews are the vocal minority, while the positive reviews are more often than not paid for.
Rather than throw our hat into the biased/unbiased review arena, theWHIR offers an unranked and paid-for listing of hosting providers. Sort of the fundamentally unbiased "yellow pages" model hosting directory.
And our news, similarly unbiased, makes for a valuable resource in researching a hosting company.
Ultimately, you're going to have to do some of your own research. If you're interested, call a company's support line. Check out their response times for yourself. Talk to some of their other customers, and see if they're happy with the service.
