In reply to Jeff Matson.

Hey Jeff, thank you for sharing your thoughts.

I wish most hosting review sites ranked hosts based on the ones they and their readers feel best about. That is just not the case, though. This is not to say there aren't honest ones. I can think of three or four. They use affiliate links so they are easy to question, but I do trust their effort and wish there were more. Affiliate junk sites are a very widespread problem that most people in the hosting industry are aware of. It's the buyers (in general) that are not and that is what's troubling.

I wouldn't start a project like this if there was no prospect for monetizing it. I have some thoughts on that. One is to advertise complimentary products in a sidebar (web design training, WordPress themes, mailing list services, etc.). My focus right now is traffic and it's clear to me already that a hosting review site without affiliate links has the potential to generate more traffic than sites that do have them because the trust-factor is raised. Less revenue per visitor but with more visitors is what I'm thinking.

Every tweet expressing a good or bad experience is worth figuring in. Some experiences will be more crucial than others. That's okay because it's true of tweets for all hosts. As long as all hosts are treated equally, the scores should be suitable for comparison. With quantity, the data will paint a picture that can be used as a reasonable guide. It seems to be working already but will be at its best after one year (scoring will only go back that far to keep things fresh).

There will be things to adjust as we go. Accuracy is what I care about most.