We all started blogging with a specific goal in mind. No one starts writing randomly. At least no one should. You blog because you want to achieve something. You want to promote your freelancing services. Your business, brand, cause… Or you simply want to share your thoughts and believes with the world. Whatever it is, you started blogging with a goal.
And in most cases, we need to attract visitors to our website if we want to achieve this goal. This means that before you start blogging you need a functional website. A step that often seems scary, especially for people who aren’t tech-savvy.
They usually face the first major obstacle to a functional website when picking a suitable web hosting provider. The internet is literally filled with different web hosting providers. How do you pick the best one for you if you have no idea what you’re doing? It simple, you ask the people on the internet what to do.
This is where it gets interesting since the internet is crowded with fake web hosting reviews. Web providers are paying large sums of money to people who are willing to promote their services. And these people – they call themselves marketers – will do anything to convince you to sign up with web hosting companies they’re promoting. And by anything I mean lie.
Fake reviews, especially web hosting reviews, are the plague of the internet. They do nothing but degrade our web experiences and make us deal with shady companies.
You might be thinking – surely this isn’t such a big deal. Afterall, people lie about many things. Lying about web hosting companies can’t be that bad.
Oh, how wrong you are my friend. Let me explain to you why we need to declare war on fake web hosting reviews.
They convince people to make wrong decisions
Imagine you’re an active member of your society and you run a charity that’s trying to change the world for the better. You want to spread your message because you believe that the more people hear about your cause the more people will join. And that would mean a better world for both you and me.
You decide that the best way to get to people is with a website. But, you have no idea how to start one. And you’re on a tight budget which means that hiring a web developer isn’t an option. You decide you’ll just figure it out on your own. And what’s the first thing you do? You read a bunch of fake web hosting reviews and pick a shady web host that’s promoting their services with “questionable” marketing techniques.
Because they’re shady your website ends up being down most of the time. This means you can’t rank in search engines and no one hears your message. What a shame. And all because someone posted a fake review online.
They Slow Down the Internet
Here’s the truth – good web hosting providers don’t have to use fake reviews. They have a proven track record and people are willing to give them positive reviews because they deserve them.
Companies that need fake reviews are the ones that can’t get any based on the quality of their service. Which means that picking a web host based on a fake review almost guarantees you’ll end up with a bad, unreliable host. And what do bad web hosting companies do? They slow down the internet by providing subpar services and long loading times.
And who would want a slow internet? Maybe you’re great-grandmother because she likes things slow, but that’s about it.
They make bad web experiences
As if slow loading times weren’t enough, imagine you’re accessing a website and the damn thing ends up being down more than online. This is more common than you think. The shady companies don’t have reliable servers or trained teams that could make things run smoothly. That’s why they fall behind. And that’s why they have to use bad marketing to get clients.
They tie people with legally binding contracts
Imagine once again you’re the person we talked about in our first point – the one that wanted to spread the message of his charity with a website. He picked a wrong web host and now has a website that isn’t functional.
What’s even worse is that because he agreed to terms of the shady web hosting company he’s now legally obliged to pay for their services and can’t move the website to a reliable host. And do you remember we said our hero’s on a tight budget? Yep, not only does he have no website, he’s basically losing money, all because of a bad review.
They are impossible to stop
I wish I could end this article with a silver lining, but I’m afraid I can’t. No matter how hard we try, there’s no way we’ll ever stop the plague that is fake web hosting reviews.
The best we can do is spread the message and make people aware of them. So, the next time you hear someone talk about starting a website, make sure you warn them about fake reviews.
Source: naijatechguide