In reply to Jeff Chandler.

Yes, good things to consider. I'm going to have to make an FAQ page.

My intention is to monetize the site. It has to at the very least support itself. My hope though is that it will do much more than that. I shared some thoughts on this with Jeff Matsen above.

I haven't made a blanket statement about all affiliates being dishonest. That's not my crusade at all. You can tell them to read the About page on HostingReviews.io where I lay the problem out very specifically.

There's nothing bad about affiliate programs themselves. The problem is an abundance of affiliates with questionable ethics who setup "review" sites.

Companies decide what to allow with their affiliate programs and affiliates decide how to conduct themselves. Standards vary from company to company and person to person. The number of hosting review sites with affiliate links that are doing a good job is slim. I do know of a few hard to spot hosting review sites that are providing good information while using affiliate links. This is why I say things like "most" and "very common" instead of "all".

The churchthemes.com affiliate program terms are laid out here if the person you talked to is concerned about how I run my business: http://churchthemes.com/affiliate-terms/#requirements. We reject 77% of affiliate applicants. I don't want our brand associated with sites that deceive people (ie. making up fake discount codes) or that don't add value (some affiliates will just copy/paste a whole ThemeForest description).

So I repeat, I am absolutely not universally opposed to affiliate marketing, not even with regard to web hosting. A site like HostingReviews.io could actually exist with the exact same data and affiliate links because the data is all publicly verifiable (which is a problem with other sites). Having affiliate links makes people skeptical, though (thanks to the abundance of low standard affiliates). How do you know the site's owner is not gaming you? Unless they're Mother Theresa, there's probably not much they can do to assure people other than leave out the affiliate links.

Whoever you spoke with is free to email me if they have questions or suggestions. My email address is on the Contact page.