1) This site may well still be listed as a “dofollow” blog, but, alas, the spammers caused that to change some months ago now and our decision was posted here at Goodbye To DoFollow

Now, my reason for restating this is that it is blatantly obvious that some of the comments are being posted by services who advertise their comment spam as SEO  and link building services on the sites they link back to. These are smart people without a doubt.

Most of these comments are flagged by Akismet as spam already, so, they are charging people for something they cannot hope to deliver, having secured themselves a warm seat in the spammer hall of  shame. The point is, if you see someone advertising a service to post links for you, for a fee, on dofollow blogs, don’t be a sucker. You are wasting your money. This is not SEO or legitimate link building and in my experience, the comments are usually so poorly written &/or completely generic or irrelevant that even if the perpetrators haven’t yet been flagged it sure won’t be long until they are.

2) Hosting providers – I think it is fairly obvious what kind of website this is. It is also fairly obvious that an area entitled “Customer Reviews” exists for customers to post their feedback. Somehow, more and more hosting sites seem to interpret this forum as “place your free ads here” or similar.

I’m not going to name any names, but invariably these companies are operating out of the Indian sub-continent or the far east. So, let’s help clear things up for you – the area of the site you are looking for is titled “Advertisers” and can be found easily in the top menu bar of every page. Yes, this site owner has bills to pay too and the rates are extremely fair as some of my existing customers will tell you.

Again, a great deal of these kinds of free ad seeking comments are finding their way into Akismet’s sin bin too and if they haven’t, you can be sure I’ll be one more webmaster/blogger doing my bit to help Akismet’s filters for the future.

To make things even easier and more convenient, if all you really want is a link, once again, it’s right there at the top of the page. I realize that reciprocal linking has lost a lot of juice in recent times but if you have a related site, I have made exchanging links as painless as possible.

3) On the subject of advertising and spam – unsolicited emails are not the way to do business online, however, I recognize that sometimes, an email to a webmaster with some kind of proposal is not always a bad thing.

Having said that, I would like to make it very clear that you cannot buy a listing at this site, nor can you buy a favorable review or similar shenanigans. I am well aware that this is common practice in the industry and is also why hosting review sites often have little credibility – see the article and video on Honest Hosting Reviews for more.

Again, I am not going to name names, but there have been several occasions where an unsolicited mail has arrived, offering me what I consider pretty substantial consideration in return for a “top listing and review”. To my mind, if you have to buy good feedback for your service, whatever industry you are in, you have some serious problems, both business and ethical.

Whilst it hurts to turn down such offers (at least in the pocket) there is little hope for any kind of  impartial hosting information should every site owner be lured by the promise of easy (dirty) money.

If you want to pay for advertising on these pages there are convenient an easy channels for doing so, but bent reviews are not part of the service provided and, I’ll say it yet again,  there is no such thing as a “Top Ten” or “Top Twenty” list of hosting providers unless the criteria are very strictly defined, and, even then, it’s hardly objective.

4) Affiliate programs – the majority of web hosts here on TCH run affiliate programs (it’s all in the disclaimer) and therefore I am paid a commission should I send customers their way. I hope that if my visitors find the reviews and articles helpful, they consider this fair exchange for the site’s features and any assistance it provides for them.

Such affiliation does not guarantee either party any favors or special treatment. Well, aside from a couple of cases where affiliate status has been withdrawn because of a refusal to remove/edit negative but fair feedback. (yes, sadly it has happened). Reasonable criticism and complaint is part and parcel of a place on our real estate.

5) To those who would genuinely like to be featured on TCH, please feel free to use my contact form and submit your proposals or requests. Whilst I can’t and don’t guarantee anything, I will always consider them. Lack of an affiliate program does not exclude you either.  As I’ve always stated on these pages, I try to offer a site where visitors can give and get some honest information and also to feature hosts who have a proven track record for reliability and fair practices. That’s not to say I never get it wrong, but if  serious problems with a company are becoming the norm,  I try to keep people informed and do remove companies who perform really badly, regardless of my personal affiliate status.

I hope this clears things up for everyone. To those who have been guilty of comment spam I urge you to rethink your tactics because it really does you nothing but harm. To those who have ever considered paying for any kind of “blog commenting” service, please save your money and put it towards some legitimate marketing and advertising. Comments are about interaction and sharing, not a shortcut to high SERPS rankings.

TCH