HostList

Review policy

HostList-native reviews exist so hosting customers can tell other hosting customers the truth. This page is the complete set of rules: what a review must be, how it is moderated, how the numbers are calculated, and what happens when something goes wrong.

Genuine experience only

A review must describe your own, first-hand experience as a customer of the hosting company being reviewed. Reviews written on behalf of someone else, from a competitor, about a company you have never used, or generated wholesale by a tool are not genuine and are removed.

Fake reviews are prohibited

Fabricated reviews, reviews of fictitious experiences, review swaps, and reviews submitted in bulk from one source are prohibited. Companies caught soliciting fake reviews lose collector-programme standing and may have all affected reviews removed.

Reviewer incentives are prohibited

Nobody may pay, discount, gift or otherwise reward a reviewer for leaving a review, for a positive review, or for a particular rating. Hosting companies may invite honest feedback using neutral language ("positive or negative"). Selective invitations (asking only happy customers) and review gating (screening sentiment before showing the review link) are treated as manipulation. HostList's own distribution programme rewards companies only for making the review link available fairly, never for ratings, sentiment or volume.

Invitations sent by HostList

A hosting company that has claimed its listing can ask HostList to email its own customers an invitation to review it. The company supplies the list; HostList sends the message and the wording is fixed, neutral and identical for every company. Invitations must cover every customer in the chosen period: batches below a minimum size are refused, and the company must confirm the list is not a selection. A recipient can opt out of review requests from every company on HostList in one click, nobody is invited twice by the same company within six months, and addresses are deleted once the invitation is delivered. HostList records how many invitations lead to a published review and audits that ratio. Nothing about invitations affects HRI, ranking or placement.

Conflicts of interest

Employees, owners and contractors of a hosting company must not review their own company or its competitors. Where a conflict is identified after publication, the review is removed. Advertising, sponsorship or any commercial relationship with HostList has no effect on moderation outcomes, ratings or review visibility.

Moderation

Every submitted review enters a moderation queue as pending and is human-reviewed before publication. Moderators check for the rules on this page, not for sentiment. A review is approved, rejected, or marked as spam; only approved reviews appear publicly or count in any number. Automated limits also apply at submission: per-address rate limits and one review per company per person (matched by email or network address) to stop duplicates.

Reviewer identity

HostList does not currently verify reviewer identity or proof of purchase. Reviews are therefore never labelled "verified customer". An email address is optional and, when given, is used for duplicate prevention and moderation contact only; it is never published. If identity verification ships in future, this policy will say exactly what "verified" means before any review carries the label.

How ratings and counts are calculated

A company's displayed HostList rating is the arithmetic mean of its approved reviews, and its review count is the number of approved reviews. Pending, rejected and spam reviews count for nothing. Reviews feed only review displays: the HostList Ranking Index (HRI) and all directory rankings are calculated from independent evidence, and neither review count nor review sentiment moves a company up or down any HostList ranking.

Suspicious reviews

Submission bursts from one network address, duplicate wording, conflicts of interest and reviews reported by companies or readers are checked by a moderator. Suspicious reviews are held or removed, and repeat sources are blocked. Suspected incentivised or gated collection also affects the company's collector-programme standing.

Negative reviews

Negative reviews are held to the same bar as positive ones and are never removed for being negative. A company cannot pay, sponsor or subscribe its way out of a critical review.

Business responses

A claimed company can publish one public response per approved review from its dashboard. Responses are attributed to the company, timestamped, and never edit, hide or re-score the review. Response access is part of the collector programme and unlocks on distribution activity, never on ratings.

Removal criteria and appeals

• Fake, incentivised or conflicted reviews: removed.
• Spam, off-topic content, or reviews of the wrong company: removed.
• Unlawful content, doxxing or personal data about individuals: removed.
• Honest negative experiences: kept.

Reviewers and companies can appeal any moderation decision by writing to [email protected] with the review and the reason. Appeals are answered by a human, and outcomes are applied the same way regardless of any commercial relationship.

Leave a review from any hosting company's HostList profile, or via its direct review link. Companies can read about fair distribution in their dashboard after claiming their listing.