81 Responses to “Web Hosting’s Dirty Laundry”

1. Keaka Says:
   May 5th, 2006 at 12:21 am

   Ha! Freaking awesome. Dave@hosting-review must be thrilled by this post. DreamHosters are my kinda people. Since I know you take bribes now, I’m going to move down to LA and buy you rounds of beer until you hire me.

2. Anonymous Says:
   May 5th, 2006 at 2:25 am

   I already wondered why Dreamhost.com is not registred in many sites! I have been soooo naive ;D

3. Simon Jessey Says:
   May 5th, 2006 at 5:38 am

   The same holds true for almost every review site, from “Top 10 Computers” to “Top 10 Underpants”. Some are more reputable than others, such as those that are extensions of published magazines, but on the whole they are all as crooked as Nixon.

4. santos Says:
   May 5th, 2006 at 6:09 am

   I forget how I found Dreamhost web site… except by doing a lot of research and finding for the price, the number of mysql connections, and the storage, that Dreamhost trumps all of the other sites. Now there have been a few problems with downtime, but transferring over to a 99.99% uptime host with only 5 GB maximum storage doesn’t really beat out >50GB at $19.99 a month with only 90% to 98% uptime. If I was running a business, I would most likely go with the other web sites because I like making the money, but really, Dreamhost does a good job for the price and amount of features.

   Only 8 databases for 20 dollars a month, get real! I want my unlimited amount of databases, connections, and users. While it is true that I’ve rarely ever gone over 8 Mysql databases, it is nice to know that I can have 100 or a 1000 if I so desired. Being forced to a set amount is a bitch, which is why I’ll probably still be with Dreamhost.

   Actually, the best ‘review’ sites are the ones that allow other customers to review the product. It is also true that companies are going to pony up some cash to pay a few people to give some ‘excellent’ reviews, but on sites that have +300 you would have a good idea. On products that have +2000 to +100000, you get an excellent idea on who is the better host.

   Except for the fact that some people are always going to be pissed off about any small thing, and some people are always going to give a good review even if the company came to their house and spit in their face (except if they did do that then the person would give a bad review).

   It is true that I have tried the hosting review sites to find a better host than Dreamhost, but after all the time I searched, I couldn’t find a host that beat out Dreamhost, which made me sad and happy. Sad that all hosting companies suck, but at various degrees depending on what feature you desire the most and happy that I’ve been with the ‘best’ for a long time.

   Affiliates can kiss my ass, I work for my money. If you do want to make me some ‘free’ money, then you can donate to my paypal account under sexybeast666@I’mjustkidding.com.

5. clofland Says:
   May 5th, 2006 at 6:21 am

   I signed up for six months with one of those “top ten” companies some years ago. I only stayed with them for 2 months and had more down time than I did hosting my site on my own DSL line on a Windows server! I spent the next four months trying to get my money back and eventually just chaulked it up to experience.

   Finding Dreamhost was a lot of work. Mostly I used DejaNews and read and read to see what hosting companies got consistently recommended by people that seemed (form their usenet posts) to be sober.

   I was still skeptical, because the Dreamhost site is just like the ripoff sites. Names like “crazy domain insane” just made me think it was another “just give us your money” site. I believe what sold me was that at the time I think you had a 30 day money back, no questions asked, garrantee.

   It is interesting that I have never found a SINGLE “real” web hosting review site on Google. Maybe it is because there is no point. Dreamhost is the best, the rest stink. :)

   I still have trouble though convincing friends not to go with the “highly rated” and “very cheap” hosting site they found on some “top ten” site. I really appreciate this article. Now I have something to send friends to.

6. Seth Says:
   May 5th, 2006 at 6:57 am

   I wonder how long their positive review of Dreamhost will stay up:

   http://www.hosting-review.com/hosting-reviews/dreamhost.shtml

7. riki Says:
   May 5th, 2006 at 7:31 am

   The review will probably stay up for as long as it keeps earning them money.

8. Nathan Friedly Says:
   May 5th, 2006 at 7:54 am

   >> I’m going to move down to LA and buy you rounds of beer until you hire me.

   I think I’m gonna move to LA and pretend to work for DH now..

9. Matt Says:
   May 5th, 2006 at 8:25 am

   Oh, man, that was very cool indeed. Thanks for sharing this!

10. James Farmer Says:
    May 5th, 2006 at 8:45 am

    I always suspected as much, but it’s shocking to see it spelled out in such graphic detail… it’s a shame there aren’t genuine webhost comparison/review sites out there. Finding a webhost these days is such hard work; finding the websites is the first and hardest step. Then making notes of the packages on offer, reading through the T&Cs for any nasty surprises, googling for horror-stories… and even after all that you have to take it on faith and hope they can deliver what they claim they can and won’t be offline every Tuesday to Saturday. I found it a very frustrating process.

    So of course, I’m with Dreamhost because a friend strongly recommended you guys, and I’ve had no cause to regret the decision. :)

11. Sara Says:
    May 5th, 2006 at 9:05 am

    Paying to get listed in the Top Ten? Pffft!
    Dreamhost doesn’t need to waste their time on website review sites! ;)

12. David Says:
    May 5th, 2006 at 9:23 am

    There are however sites that are legitimate.

    I’ve dealt with Dave at hosting-review before (on behalf of another company) and while he does convert sales (and insanely fast) I’m simply not into the whole ‘crooking’ customers style of business.

    The majority of the lists aren’t legitimate and they do their best to hide it. It’s a sad sad fact but to be honest Dreamhost: By having an affiliate program with such a high payout you’re helping spur it.

    Just be wary of who you trust!

13. Chris Adams Says:
    May 5th, 2006 at 9:55 am

    I’ve seen that in other industries and had suspected that the rating sites are at least as hopelessly manipulated as the industry magazines and major “analysts” but it was great to see just how much open they are about it.

14. Clark Nova Says:
    May 5th, 2006 at 10:16 am

    You know what? This only reaffirms my confidence in Dreamhost. It would be easier for them play along with those guys and buy their place on their “top ten”, but exposing them is a bold thing to do.

    Thanks for this.

15. Bill Brown Says:
    May 5th, 2006 at 10:40 am

    I must say that I am seriously impressed by your blog generally and the tone of this entry in particular. I work on a corporate blog and every entry has to be vetted by lawyers–it must be very refreshing to be able to post whatever you want and call another company a “skidmark.” I know I would love to at my job.

    I earlier went with the recommendation of one of those review sites and it was horrible: overpriced and underfeatured. DH is my last stop (until I need Windows hosting and then I’ll check out your partner hosting.com).

16. pull to inflate » Blog Archive » Dreamhost : Hosting Redemption Says:
    May 5th, 2006 at 10:43 am

    [...] Dreamhost may have made marketing redemption with the beautiful and revealing Web Hosting’s Dirty Laundry. A brief, and quality, tirade into the realm of ‘independent hosting review sites’ that market themselves as user sites displaying the best of the best; though apparently the independent reviews are simply fluff for the highest buyer, not the best value. [...]

17. Phrozt Says:
    May 5th, 2006 at 11:44 am

    That’s hilarious… I took a chance w/Dreamhost, even in light of some recent bad reviews at an webhosting chat forum, and have been completely pleased with my service. After reading this article, I’m even more proud to have chosen them as the host for my main personal site.

    GG DH!

18. warpedvisions.org » Blog Archive » Dreamhost on Web Hosting’s Dirty Laundry Says:
    May 5th, 2006 at 11:46 am

    [...] May 5th, 2006 in Links Dreamhost uncovers the Web Hosting’s Dirty Laundry: unbiased hosting review sites are not all that unbiased. [...]

19. my weblog » Blog Archive » Why I like Dreamhost. Why I don’t like Goldfish. Says:
    May 5th, 2006 at 12:48 pm

    [...] Some companies just seem cool to deal with. As an example of what is cool about Dreamhost (who I’ve used now for web hosting for getting on for 2 years), have a read of their blog. In particular, articles like this make interesting (and often amusing) reading. [...]

20. Mac Web Design » MacTheWeb » Host Ranking Ripoff Says:
    May 5th, 2006 at 12:59 pm

    [...] Read more at Dreamhost Blog. Lots of dirty laundry here. [...]

21. Jaanus on the internet Says:
    May 5th, 2006 at 1:11 pm

    Phony “top 10″ sites…

    Dirty laundry of web hosting and Internet Marketing, or why most “top 10” type of sites are phony…….

22. Dropping a Dime on the Bus at mahalie.com Says:
    May 5th, 2006 at 2:26 pm

    [...] The rap dictionary is way cool. (props Dreamhost Blog) [...]

23. nemontemi Says:
    May 5th, 2006 at 5:23 pm

    nothing can assure Dreamhost is out of that industry, just playing with different cards - like pointing out some dirty trash - to make my mind and try to make me feel proud of signing with them.
    there’s always the question in the air.

    but the service is the best I’ve seen, they talk to their customers (personally I don’t like this word, DH seems to see us like real people), they listen. DH earns with this, so do we do.

    other companies don’t seem to like this strategy, they just see the statistics and the profits. that’s why I should choose and recommend DH for everyone.

24. riki Says:
    May 5th, 2006 at 7:26 pm

    Taking about “Dirty Laundry”, I recently had a bad experience with Dreamhost Rewards, which I really pray they take steps to ensure doesn’t happen again.

    I’m a webmaster who’s been with Dreamhost since October 99 and I’ve always referred my clients to Dreamhost as standard practice. I’ve apparently had around 40 direct referrals in that period, at least a dozen of my own clients.

    I recently signed up, one of my new clients with their own Dreamhost account. So we’re sitting patiently waiting for the account to be activated only to discover that the transaction was automatically tagged as “potential fraudulent” and the initial two year payment was automatically refunded to my clients credit-card. Great for security I guess, but not something we wanted or requested.

    When I asked why it was tagged as potential fraudulent. I was told that this was standard practice for almost all overseas customers. First of all I’d like to say “thanks we really appreciated being wrongly accused of fraud, it does wonders for ensuring client confidence”.

    So luckily my client didn’t ditch me at this point. Any mention of internet fraud normally scares the carp out of most people. So just a minor gotcha. Luckily my client (a person I’ve never meet before, we live in different countries) understands the situation and submits the credit-card rubbing as requested and we make a second cc payment. The account is fully activated, up and running, no problems. “Whew!”

    I get to work, setting up two sites for my client, pointing the DNS for their .COM.AU domain names to Dreamhost, setting up a database etc. A few days later I notice my Rewards payment hasn’t come through to my DH account. I contact Dreamhost only to be again wrongly accused, but this time for requesting “what appears to be a Charge-Back”, which is a serious transgression as the DH sales support person correctly points out. So DH has deleted my rewards payment and apparently charged me a $20 fee. Wow thanks for the referral, ouch! did that just cost me money???

    But wait a second, the clients account is fully paid up, two years in advance. Their sites have been up and running for several days now. A fact which is easily determined if the DH sales support person had done his job properly.

    Here’s the thing: It wasn’t a Charge-Back, it was the “Dreamhost Unnecessary Pain System” which automatically refunded my clients money in the first place that was still causing me grief.

    To the credit of Dreamhost the situation was finally resolved. In the end I got through to a very kind and helpful DH sales woman who assessed the situation and sorted it out for me.

    I imagine the DH Rewards system has probably played a big part in the significant growth of Dreamhost over the past few years. I’m sure the large $97 rewards payment must attract it’s share of scum. Like flies to fresh roadkill. But you should be careful when weeding out the scum, that you’re not wedding out legitimate long term clients. As Dreamhost continues to grow, this will become more of an issue.

    As a webmaster it’s always myself that opens the new Dreamhost account for my client. Personally I think you need to have some sort of honor/reputation system to make it easier to identify trusted longterm clients.

25. Raz2133 Says:
    May 5th, 2006 at 8:40 pm

    Regarding riki’s comment above;

    I have seen similar things here, which leads me to believe that the DreamHost rewards system does have some flaws. Legitimate referrals can sometimes fall between the cracks, with the referrer missing out on their rewards payment.

    If a particular referral is flagged as ‘fraudulent’, their payment is refunded and any rewards payment is reversed. So far, so good.

    However, if the ‘fraudulent’ customer subsequently provides documentation and has the account re-instated, the rewards payment does not seem to be also re-instated. Leaving DreamHost with a new customer and the original referrer without their rewards payment.

    Mark

26. santos Says:
    May 6th, 2006 at 10:37 am

    Oh, the hosting-review site has a blacklist of hosts, and you can only get to it from mailing list. Several guesses on who may or may not be on it now.

27. John Koetsier Says:
    May 6th, 2006 at 1:14 pm

    Way to go, DreamHost. Thanks for finding this out and for publishing it!

28. HedgeMage Says:
    May 6th, 2006 at 1:23 pm

    Yet another reason I don’t use rating sites for things like this.

    My ultra-scientific research process involved asking friends and acquaintances in the free and open source software community for reccommendations. Any time I mentioned web hosting, at least 5 people professed their undying love for DreamHost. :)

    I’m willing to bet that you get as much or more business from word-of mouth than any other source.

    HedgeMage

29. Welcome to MekTrix 4.0 » Blog Archive » An assortment of pimpage Says:
    May 6th, 2006 at 3:08 pm

    [...] Dreamhost prefers moral integrity to free customers. Also, their wordpress anti-spam mod seems to work, as I’ve had one spam comment since signing up, compared to 3-4 per day on my vanilla install. [...]

30. Mark Anderson Says:
    May 6th, 2006 at 10:06 pm

    Haha, that’s hilarious! Someone actually registered the domain on the underwear: http://www.totallyunbiasedhostingreviews.com — Classic!

31. Ian Clifton Says:
    May 6th, 2006 at 11:01 pm

    Yeah, I found many of those sites were pretty suspicious from the get-go. I visited half a dozen and they had minimal overlap. I would see one or two hosts I recognized and the rest would be completely different on each site. I’m sure if you went to a bunch of “Top Ten Cars” sites, you would see all those Ferraris you were talking about, but if the sites were run like the hosting review ones, we’d see Pintos and Yugo GV’s.

    Even individual people were all over trying to make a buck through affiliate programs. One guy bashed DH (for a problem that sounded like his own fault) and suggested users try his new host. He had links to both hosts, both using affiliate programs.

    Ultimately it came down to word of mouth and the fast replies of the DreamHost staff to finally convince me. Seeing this blog pleases me all the more.

32. Scott Says:
    May 6th, 2006 at 11:40 pm

    I guess I’m smart enough to smell a rat and I never trusted these “review” sites from the word go.

    Then when I researched them and found they weren’t affiliated with any tech-related web publishers I know (e.g. Ziff Davis, CMP, ArsTechnica, CNet, etc) it was obvious to me that I Was right.

    I did my research based on reviews from “real” tech sites (nothing dedicated solely to web hosting reviews) and just asked around.

    Regardless of where I looked Dreamhost was always at or near the top.

    However, you only offer SSH to business accounts. And I think everyone serious about web hosting (or email for that matter) should have access to SSH.

    So I looked around some more. I found several that offered it (I don’t recall who they were anymore except for the one I ended up with).

    I finally decided on ace-host.com (a/k/a Acenet). They had gotten “average” reviews. But they offered everything I wanted and were ridiculously inexpensive (so much so that I figured if I hated them I’d bail out early and lose that little money I’d spent).

    Well they’ve turned out to be “average” overall and they did discontinue IMAP (which I really wanted as I run multiple operating systems) so that was a bit annoying (I’ve ince decided to use my old computer as a personal IMAP server).

    But, they still offer SSH to anyone (they did require a copy of my Driver’s License and it had to have a current address on it, but that seemed reasonable).

    I don’t recall how I found them at this point. But considering I believe you get what you pay for, they aren’t bad.

    But I digress….

    I knew these “hosting review” sites were a joke from the word go. As time went on it became even more apparent.

    So my advice to anyone reading this is to go with trusted names in technology review sites (like the previously mentioned ones).

    Don’t stop there though, see what else you can come up with. You might be able to find a customer or two whom you can ask. Several of the better hosts even encourage this (mine wouldn’t be among them).

    Then there’s always word of mouth. I’m on several Linux related mailing lists and so far I’ve seen the question come up twice in the past 6 months.. Both times there were 3-4 hosts mentioned. And both times one of them was none other than Dreamhost.

    If SSH wasn’t important to me, I’d be with you now.

33. Raz2133 Says:
    May 7th, 2006 at 4:53 am

    SSH is now available on all DreamHost plans :)

    Mark

34. Radio Levhita » Archivo » La ropa sucia de las reseñas de hospedajes. Says:
    May 7th, 2006 at 8:02 am

    [...] En fin, Dreamhost hizo publicos unos correos con conversaciones entre el representante de ventas de Hosting-review.com y el representante de ventas de Dreamhost. [...]

35. StrayPackets Says:
    May 7th, 2006 at 8:13 am

    Choosing A Web Host? Do Your Research!…

    If you’re going to run a blog or any other kinds of site, you need a place to put it: a host. You need a server, either your own or someone else’s. Standing up, securing and administering your own web……

36. Adam Says:
    May 7th, 2006 at 1:08 pm

    I love you guys,

    Keep up the good work,

    Making money online is a dream,

    but not one that should be cheating people in such a way,

    $3200 ,

    hah, Ive known for a while the industry is fixed. You’d be interested to know that some companies that we are dependant upon such as ventrilo, intentionally hold back their VOIP software so that we cannot effectively compete with them,

    My heart goes out to decent companies like dreamhost that are just trying to make an honest living, without cheating their way to the front, or monopolising the industry, which in the UK is illegal!

    Kind Regards,

    Adam

37. Shish Says:
    May 7th, 2006 at 1:51 pm

    “SSH is now available”? When was it ever *not* available?

38. Raz2133 Says:
    May 8th, 2006 at 12:52 am

    > “When was it ever *not* available?”

    I only used the word ‘now’ in my reply because Scott stated that when he was shopping for hosting that SSH was only available on business accounts.

    SSH has been available on all plans since I have been hosting with DreamHost, but I have no idea if at some time in the distant past this wasn’t the case.

    Mark

39. S Jain Says:
    May 8th, 2006 at 3:07 pm

    I am with you guys until I see the signs that your overselling has began to hurt your exisiting customers. I know this day will come.

40. miklos Says:
    May 8th, 2006 at 5:05 pm

    Smart enough to smell a rat but not smart enough to look around and see what the current hosting plans offer before looking like a fool.

    hehe..

    Dreamhost is the only one for me.

    Period.

41. Montoya Says:
    May 8th, 2006 at 10:31 pm

    Great! Now do us all a favor and make the servers run faster please :)

42. Randy Says:
    May 8th, 2006 at 11:00 pm

    Thanks for lifting that skirt and air out that dirty laundry.
    Now that I’ve seen that skidmark I’m disgusted.

    You gotta feel Dave’s pain though. I mean with gas prices the way they are can you imagine how much it costs to keep a yacht running?…

    Right on guys! Great job!

43. Googlando » Blog Archive » Tam Tam Says:
    May 9th, 2006 at 12:33 pm

    [...] Dreamhost: vi voglio bene assai! [...]

44. /home/nil/ » Blog Archive » The dirty truth about webhosting review websites. Says:
    May 9th, 2006 at 10:02 pm

    [...] DreamHost recently had an investigation into hosting-review.com and dugg up a few surprising facts. A must read for everybody who has ever visited any sort of hosting review website.read more | digg story Posted by nil Filed in General [...]

45. David Says:
    May 10th, 2006 at 4:48 am

    Interesting blog post but it is not without *irony*.

    The hosting industry offered big affiliate comissions for sales generated from sites in the first place. Of course this leads to people creating sites to serve up reviews in an attempt to make some sales, and in some cases these sites begin to recieve a lot of traffic.

    When a review site starts turning big dollars due to the amount of traffic they have pass through their site, they can then use this traffic to bata with hosting providers for better payouts.

    As hosting-review.com has become on of the big players in the hosting affiliate market, they can name their price for listing on their site.

    I guess what I am saying is that the hosting industry as a whole (but no necessarily DH) made their bed by offering affiliate payments, now they have to sleep in it!

46. Pete Says:
    May 10th, 2006 at 4:33 pm

    On a barely related topic, I find it funny that their site doesn’t seem to understand our sleeping kid. He’s not dreaming of partying, he’s conked out because he’s been partying!

    It’s funny because he’s a kid!

    Okay, that’s all I’ve got.

47. Dave Says:
    May 11th, 2006 at 2:30 am

    Fantastic you should have done this - if only more people were this honest.

48. the imbroglio » Blog Archive » Web Hosting’s Dirty Laundry Says:
    May 11th, 2006 at 4:02 am

    [...] What do all of these so-called “review” sites actually do? They make money. A lot of money. ⇒ [via] Tags: reviews , scams , webhosting [...]

49. vinicius Says:
    May 11th, 2006 at 3:14 pm

    Brett, you were cruel. I always thought hosting review sites were serious. Now I enter hosting-review.com and feel discouraged to do a single click.

50. StrayPackets / Choosing A Web Host? Do Your Research! Says:
    May 12th, 2006 at 11:54 am

    [...] DreamHost, a popular hosting company, gets into the nitty-gritty of bogus review sites on its blog. It’s a blow-by-blow account of their experience after a review site solicited them to appear on their “Editor’s Picks” page. Money, it seems, was all it took. [...]

51. d00d Says:
    May 13th, 2006 at 10:24 am

    ahahhahahahahhahahahahahhahahahhaa. review your bank account balance, that’s about it, eh?

52. d00d Says:
    May 13th, 2006 at 10:34 am

    you guys didn’t notice, but on their adsense, there is an ad for dreamhost. :)

53. what i learnt today » Blog Archive » Affiliates make a lot of money Says:
    May 14th, 2006 at 2:03 am

    [...] Now looking at the DreamHost Blog, I see that even affiliates for hosting companies also do make a lot of money. I’ve always suspected that hosting reveiew sites do fudge the reviews a lot in order to earn some quick money, but this is direct proof. Probably the people at Web Hosting Talk are much better as there is a community with everyone contributing, and the ads are in a seperate section altogether. Also, there is enough stating that the host that you find great may not be so for another user, as every users needs changes from application to application. [...]

54. frosty Says:
    May 14th, 2006 at 9:00 pm

    classic! great! you just won a new customer!

    no, seriously. i was browsing around trying to decide whether to pick you as my next web host (mikeindustries.com sent me), and this blog post was the clincher.

    off to sign up now.

55. Hosting Hoopla » DreamHost Exposes Hosting-Review.com Says:
    May 15th, 2006 at 5:25 am

    [...] Dirty Laundry!] tags: DreamHost, hosting, web hosts, reviews, top 10, fraud Share “DreamHost Exposes Hosting-Review.com” on:              [...]

56. Mika Says:
    May 15th, 2006 at 9:31 am

    Wow. That’s pretty cool.

    Those briefs remind me of this one time I was browsing aimlessly on eBay and noticed how many bids dirty used socks were getting. So for the hell of it, I put my used, unwashed briefs up for the highest bidder. A guy named Mike from Alabama ended up paying $50 for them, and there were quite a few bids. True story. Do I want to know what he used them for? No.

    I didn’t turn it into a big business, but perhaps y’all could. Now that I think about it, I wonder if there’s a guy named Mike in Alabama who runs a hosting review site?

57. vlad Says:
    May 16th, 2006 at 6:58 am

    So…

    Does that guy’s referral link to DreamHost still work?

58. wxulm Says:
    May 16th, 2006 at 10:34 am

    Dreamhost comes in 2nd behind Hostgater.com in the May 2006 “issue” of the Cheap Web Hosting report which, by the way, hosts with Dreamhost.

    http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/

59. nvwem Says:
    May 16th, 2006 at 4:20 pm

    Dave, do you have stairs in your house?

60. miker Says:
    May 16th, 2006 at 6:01 pm

    So, this just adds to my love of dreamhost, but recently when I recommended dh to a friend, he said ‘absolutely not,’ and pointed to two things:
    An F with the BBB: http://www.labbb.org/BBBWeb/Forms/Business/CompanyReportPage_Expository.aspx?CompanyID=13131294

    and some ugly things over at:
    http://www.dreamhost-sucks.com/

    I’m having trouble matching these complaints to the essentially perfect service I’ve gotten from you guys, and was wondering if you were doing anything to fix that BBB rating, or if there was something I could do as a satisfied customer (doesn’t look like the BBB takes positive feedback on companies).

61. Pete Says:
    May 17th, 2006 at 7:23 pm

    It chaps my hide a little bit when the BBB thing comes up. The BBB is a company that is basically funded by membership dollars. You cannot respond to a complaint without becoming a member, and anyone can file a complaint. DreamHost has 17 complaints. Compare this to Girls Gone Wild, for example, with 560 complaints, or Consumer Reward Network, with 1415 complaints, or Buyer’s Union, with 1724 complaints. All of these companies get an “F” with no frame of reference. This is the BBB’s blackmail scheme: Become a member, or get an F.

    There should never be a company that gets its membership dues from the people it assigns ratings to. That should be as simple a case of conflict of interest as there ever was.

    Sadly, there’s nothing you can do to help fix that BBB rating. DreamHost would have to pay membership dues and then file a complaint resolution on each of those complaints. Many times, a “complaint resolution” is just the company in question showing the BBB that the customer is wrong (no actual resoultion), so be careful. When you see resolved complaints on a company’s BBB profile, it doesn’t always mean the customer was happy.

62. Randall Says:
    May 18th, 2006 at 8:41 am

    I run a web hosting report site:

    http://www.cheapwebhostingreport.com/

    It brings in a few sales and hence a bit of cash from affiliate programs every month. It doesn’t make much money because I rank sites based on their features and customer reports of their customer experience instead of “size of the affiliate check” and because I don’t accept (let alone ask for) money from hosting companies to “adjust” their ranking.

    Although my Cheap Web Hosting Report site is not among the most visited or the best known, I regularly get offers from hosting companies (often companies who have too poor a rankings to even make the list) to list them in the monthly top five. Although I could really use the money, I’ve turned them all down. None of the offers I’ve received for position has been anywhere near the outrageous amount the site you were dealing with wanted for the tenth spot on the chart. I expect there are companies paying it, however.

63. santos Says:
    May 18th, 2006 at 10:49 am

    I looked at the http://www.dreamhost-sucks.com site and it seems that there are quite a lot of comments that are wrong.

    Hidden CPU utilization limitations

    Buried deep within DreamHost’s terms and service are limits to how much CPU utilization you can use. Unfortunately there is no way for you to monitor this, you’ll just have to take DreamHost’s word that you’re exceeding the limits. If you exceed the limits, they’ll disable your account.

    This wrong on many levels. I don’t know about the terms and service since I never read it, unless I had to when I signed up and in which case I did.

    There is a way to monitor it, you just have to activate monitoring. They perhaps could make it easier to see from the web site. Half the time I give up looking at it.

    Dreamhost doesn’t disable your account, they move you and give you a chance.

    Customers are unable to host forums or blogs due to CPU utilization limitations

    They give examples of Wordpress and phpBB, which I have ran just fine, albeit with little to no visitors.

64. DreamHost Blog » The Truth About Overselling! Says:
    May 18th, 2006 at 2:27 pm

    [...] Whee-oo, judging by the popularity of that last post, it’d probably be in the best interest of our blog traffic to keep this “exposé” bandwagon rolling! [...]

65. ThisDomainWasFree Weblog » Blog Archive » An Honest Dreamhost Review Says:
    May 26th, 2006 at 6:21 pm

    [...] Update: How novel, I’m only chatting a little shit! You should read this. You can read my post if you like, but those two are a lot better. [...]

66. noise Says:
    May 27th, 2006 at 11:09 pm

    Cant believe how funny you guys are,
    Where is your sense of false mystery, condescendtion to your customers and arrogance ?

67. Denken Über » Cambios en el hosting de Dreamhost Says:
    June 2nd, 2006 at 9:17 am

    [...] Realmente el post de ellos vale la pena leerlo entero para entender como funciona el negocio del hosting realmente, y si te interesa profundizar, este otro post es impresionante para entender como las “listas objetivas de reseñas de hosting. [...]

68. Recommended Hosts » Blog Archive » Why Hosting Directories are complete waste of time? Says:
    June 9th, 2006 at 4:16 pm

    [...] So, what about those very honest, totally unbiased hosting review site? Well, the people from dreamhost would love to talk about it. Posted by Steve [...]

69. andy Says:
    June 9th, 2006 at 6:08 pm

    I got kicked from for dreamhost because of cpu usage issues, had some pretty bad feelings about them, i swore i’d never post here and then i read something like this.

    dreamhost is a rare thing that i can not define. this entry is good stuff and i was wrong. there is a soul in dreamhost.

    rock on

70. Will Says:
    June 12th, 2006 at 2:10 am

    http://www.dreambook.com/ads/052499/webhostdir.gif

    ;-)

71. Ryan Thiessen » marketing to cynical people Says:
    June 14th, 2006 at 7:53 pm

    [...] It’s common knowledge that things like tophosting.com are an utter scam… but usually those attract people who are looking for a web host in the first place.  Deliberately seeking out suspicious skeptical people with a targeted campaign like productresearch.org do strikes me as very clever.  At the very least, they got me to see ad for them that I otherwise would not have seen. Of course I’m still not going to buy anything from them, likely I will return to JohnCompanies and get a dedicated server from them (Server Plan 2 with a 1G bump of ram).  But still… clever marketing.   [...]

72. Max Says:
    June 15th, 2006 at 4:26 am

    Dreamhost, you are my new idol. I was checking up on reviews for you, and frustratingly enough, many ‘unbiased’ host review sites were apparently offering glowing reviews — but they all offered the same verbiage. Apparently, they’re plagiarizing each other.

    Anyway, I finally found a review site that offered up public opinion. Though mixed, reviews leaned toward the positive.

    But then I found your official blog and your ‘experiment’ with regard to the hosting company review site. Their unbiased bought opinions. That Dave guy is an idiot and a sleazy snake that makes the affiliate system lack integrity along with adding more and more junk to the already cluttered Internet.

    You are terrific and very brave for doing this. And this alone, this blog, is enough to secure an account with you guys. This is integrity. This is sharing with your customers, or potential customers. This is what a good business should do, but most won’t.

    Thanks guys. You’ll be seeing me, and my friends, as customers now. Good going.

73. matteo Says:
    July 1st, 2006 at 8:07 am

    You guys ROCK!!

    3 years ago I was pushed into ipowerweb by these fucking review sites when i still didnt know much about it, it has been very much ups and downs, and they’re prtty dishonest. I love your control panel from which you can handle all you need without having to send emails to change billing, renew stuff…

    And i love the way you keep open relationship with customers and tell everything as it is.

    Keep on rocking!

74. Steven Says:
    July 3rd, 2006 at 6:52 pm

    After having taken that “much-needed shower” did you then drop Hosting-Review.com from your affiliate program?

75. Time flies » Blog Archive » Webhost ranking ripoffs Says:
    July 7th, 2006 at 4:36 am

    [...] http://blog.dreamhost.com/2006/05/04/web-hostings-dirty-laundry/  [...]

76. DreamHost Blog » YOU C@#KS#CK’N SPAMMERS! Says:
    August 16th, 2006 at 5:53 pm

    [...] I tend to have trouble keeping things under wraps, so I’m sharing. This has to be heard. [...]

77. Miscellaneous Flotch Says:
    August 18th, 2006 at 8:59 pm

    Web Hosting’s Dirty Laundry…

    Web-hosting’s dirty laundry You know those sites with “unbiased” reviews of webhosts? Surprise: they’re simply large advertising venues….

78. from the gut » SRLNet Has Separation Issues Says:
    November 3rd, 2006 at 6:59 am

    [...] The reply was that dreamhost offers terrible support, oversells their servers, and their sites frequently go down. I already knew all this. You know why, because dreamhost told me. He told me that I might be saving money but that I would be losing support and performance. [...]

79. Web Hosting » Web Hosting’s Dirty Laundry Says:
    December 5th, 2006 at 8:11 pm

    [...] Original post by Brett [...]

80. » WebHost4Life Hacked? You decide. debugger; Says:
    January 28th, 2007 at 11:42 pm

    [...] of an ASP.NET app I am making) and because it was reasonably priced. Also, because of all the crap littered around Google pertaining to web hosting reviews, it’s nearly impossible to find out [...]

81. Cheapest Web Host Says:
    July 25th, 2008 at 4:12 pm

    Build Your Site from Scratch, Redesign, or Enhance. No Setup Fee.

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