Most people understand the importance of choosing a good web host. Those who don’t attach due importance to web hosts (or choosing of web hosts) learn it the hard way.  Generally, reviews are considered as a good way of mitigating the risk associated with any service (not just web hosting service) that you have not used previously. You are skeptical about the service provider and their services (in fact, being a bit skeptic is actually a healthy sign).  

Reviews are often touted as one of the best ways of addressing all such skeptic feelings. However, a lot of people find it difficult to take a decision even after they have seen the reviews of web hosts. Their main contention is with regards to the ingenuity of the reviews. When they search on the internet, they find reviews at various different websites. They finds some wonderful reviews at the website of the web host and they also find a few reviews on each of the several web hosting review websites, forums etc. 

So, which reviews should you consider when evaluating a web host? 

The first rule here is to consider only those reviews that are available through an independent body. So, the reviews that are displayed at the website of the web host should not be considered; more so if they are not accompanied by contact information of the customer who wrote that review. 

The reviews that are available at independent websites (like web hosting review websites and forums) are the ones that you should really be looking at. Again, you would be looking for the websites that have a lot of web hosting reviews i.e. the websites that provide user reviews on a number of web hosts and where there are a large number of reviews for each web host. At such websites, the probability of foul play is much lesser.  

In this sense, http://www.webhostingreviewdirectory.com seems to present a good proposition. This website is not a web hosting review website. Instead, it is a directory of web hosting review websites. At http://www.webhostingreviewdirectory.com, the hosting reviews from various web hosting review websites are consolidated at one place. Moreover, the reviews are grouped on per host basis. So, what you get is a large number of web hosting reviews for each web host. This is one of the best ways of addressing doubts on the ingenuity of reviews. So, you can either go with the consolidated verdict or read individual reviews and reach a decision on which web host would be the best for your website.