Affiliate Disclosure
Hosting Tribunal Generates Income Through Affiliate Commissions
We use affiliate links to earn commissions from most of the products reviewed and recommended on our pages.
Whenever a reader clicks on one of the affiliate links posted in our reviews and makes a purchase, we receive payment. The hosting companies with which have affiliate partnership are listed below.
Why We Use Affiliate Links
There are two main reasons why we utilize affiliate links.
For starters, HostingTribunal.com functions as a business. We have hosting expenses (for testing purposes and otherwise) and we pay salaries.
The second reason why we feature affiliate links from mostly all hosting providers is to level the playground among the hosts we review. We are humans and we are prone to err, willingly or not, especially when temptation is involved.
With monetary incentive coming from all hosts we review, the potential subconscious inclination to favor one company over another because of the allure of material gain is removed from the picture.
Lastly, we were considering the run ads, but they have two major caveats.
They need a lot of space, and we cannot control what products are promoted through them. We decided to use the space we have to display useful information and provide smoother navigation.
Also, with affiliate links, we can and do choose what goes on our site. That’s why all hosting solutions we have analyzed are, if nothing else, trusted and legitimate companies that will not scam you.
Which brings us to the next point.
Do Affiliate Links Impact the Product Reviews and the Ratings We Ascribe?
No, the affiliate links play no role in the final ratings and our recommendations (or lack thereof).
The presence of affiliate links in mostly all products we present removes the potential monetary incentive to favor one hosting solution over another because on the potential gain for us.
All our reviews rely on months of monitoring and comprehensive testing. We collect extensive data regarding:
- Uptime - Non-stop monitoring
- Speed - Front and backend speed tests
- Features - As listed on the companies’ sites and in their respective control panels
- Cost - Introductory and renewal fees
Armed with this data we begin our analyses. The hard numbers determine the quality of a host to a large extent.
The quality of the support team also plays a heavy role, and we rank it as objectively as possible. Speed of response and knowledge are the main factors. Pure and simple, if the support team take days to respond to a query and gives useless answers, they are no good.
Additionally, we list the negative sides of each hosting platform we examine because our objective is to create comprehensive and thorough reviews.
Granted, there is a certain subjectivity in each review, especially when talking about interface and ease of use. Also, it is possible that our reviewer lucks into quality support agents who could be the minority of the examined support team.
That’s why we encourage feedback from users. The user reviews we collect and the comment sections below our articles are meant to paint a fuller picture.
Speaking of full pictures, checking out other review sites and discussion forums is always a sound idea when researching where to put your money. It is almost impossible to determine who is the absolute best hosting provider as the margins between the top companies are slim.
That’s why thorough research helps a lot in finding the one that suits you the most.
Transparency and Honest Dialogue
One of our core values is transparency and the possibility for honest dialogue. We are not afraid to criticize hosting providers, hoping that our critique will help them develop better products.
But this goes both ways which is why we are completely open about the modus operandi of our site and the role of affiliate links.
Affiliate links cost you nothing and allow us to monitor and study the world of web hosting.
However, if you are unhappy with the way things are or have ideas how to do our job better, please, feel free to let us know.