With the most recent Google update comes some new web hosting review sites that have been popping up for relevant searches. That means a whole new crop of affiliates who stand to make a lot of money based on your clicks and sign ups. Let’s go through the list of new sites and see which are legit, and which have reviews that are faked to make you sign up for the company that sends them the most money.

TopTenReviews.com – FAKE – How do I know? For one, iPage is the “best host” on the list. Any website that lists iPage as the best host is fake, plain and simple. They pay a TON of money to these affiliates to be #1 and the cheapest price because it means there’s no reason for you to sign up for any other host.

PCMag.com – FAKE – While iPage is not #1, 4 of their top 10 hosts are EIG. Not only that, their side by side comparisons are blatantly wrong in most cases. Luckily the comments section of this page is mostly people calling out the reviews for being bad.

Reviews.com – FAKE – iPage, Hostgator, JustHost, A Small Orange, Netfirms, and Bluehost are ALL the same company, EIG. They have over 50 brands and buy up as many top 10 spots as they can to ensure that they have the best chance of getting you to sign up there. The idea that a “web hosting expert” would rank iPage #1 is hilarious.

PRChecker.info – FAKE – Again, a top 10 dominated by EIG brands, and not a bad user review to be found. We all know that the people who voice their opinions the most are those who are unhappy. I wouldn’t be surprised if they omitted any bad review that they received.

TechCrunch.com – REAL – While not a review site itself, TechCrunch.com does what I try to do a lot of my site. Expose web hosting reviews for what they really are. It’s refreshing to see a website like this on the front page of Google.

These are just a few examples of some new first page results for web hosting review keywords. Always take what you read with a grain of salt. There is a lot of money to be had when you can get your website to the front page of Google, and ethics tend to go out the window when companies are trying to throw money at you.