There are lots of websites on the Internet: all sorts of hosting reviews websites that talk about or collect web hosting reviews, sites posting all kinds of ratings, or top 10 or top 20 web hosting companies lists. If you spend a little bit of time comparing those lists, you’ll see that most recommend the same companies.

You might think: “That’s normal. It means those are really the best!”. Unfortunately, no! The reason that the same companies always make it to the “top” is that those companies, one way or another, pay to be listed there.

Most of the time I run across a so-called “top web hosting companies list”, all of the companies listed as being “in the top” run an affiliate program through Commission Junction (www.cj.com). No, there’s nothing wrong with Commission Junction.

It’s a known fact though, that the web hosting companies running their affiliate programs through Commission Junction offer among the highest affiliate commissions in the hosting industry. So, some “clever” guys thought about it: why not create websites with “top web hosting companies” lists and list these companies as “top”?

The really wrong part comes just now though: they don’t rank them based on the quality of service (although they claim to), but more on the *size* of the commission. The companies offering the highest commissions usually get the top spots.

I investigated those companies myself. Out of over 20 companies, only 2 proved to be quality web hosts according to what real people (their customers) said about them. It’s also true that there wasn’t much to be found about most of them. However, what’s really worrying is the fact that except for one company (which is very good indeed), the companies that are usually listed in the top 5 are really bad. In fact, there are so many negative reviews about them (real, honest reviews) that they would easily qualify to be listed in any “top 10 worst web hosting companies”.