[xdude]

I thought to write this because There are so many reviews in the VPS section which are great but many missing few things which can make those posts very very valuable for Sponsors too. First of all we have to understand why these reviews are important and to whom. I think reviews are lot more important for Sponsors than for users and holders. Because that's  one of the few ways they can get a return for their investment here. It's holders duty to provide something worthy in return for the server you get to use without spending money. I won't say free since we do pay for it in a way. But it has to be something which has a value. I think I have told these in some other post too but i think it's better to do it in a dedicated topic. Also hope this will give some pointers for those who not sure how to write a proper review.

01. I think it's a common mistake here many just use only the VPS name in review title. Like VPS1 Review etc. It should be like SponsorName - VPSName - Review.  It's important for Sponsor to have their Brand Name in the title. Nobody knows VPS number outside the forum and Sponsor has no use in that either. Sponsor want these reviews to show up in Google search when someone search for the brand name. IMO, this is a must in a good view.

02. At the first paragraph of the post make sure you include Sponsor name in Bold letters along with Url to their site. This is very helpful for their brand name as well as add weight to their site SEO wise. If they have a staff member in forum then mention him or her too.

03. Talk about what are you doing in this server and how this vps work for whatever you task. Give your honest opinion about this. This is one of the most important parts of a review.

04. Benchmarks. Benchmarks are part of the review not the whole things. It's more for members than sponsors. Personally even I do benchmarks I don't post those if someone else has already posted it. It only matter if there is a difference.

05. It's great if you talk about what sponsor offers in their site and packages at end of the review. Provide a link to their package page.

06. Use word phrases like VPS Hosting, Web Hosting in your review when you can. Don't over do by using same word in too many places but there are plenty of related words to use.

Nothing hard to do here, but these would make your review appear in right places for right people.

[deanhills]

@xdude Thank you for another quality contribution to the SEO of the Forum, this is much appreciated.  

I guess we have to always appreciate that not every member is capable of a quality review, and we don't want to discourage members from trying their hand at writing a review. There should of course always be a minimum standard, but throwing too many guidelines could discourage VPS Holders from writing reviews.  I'd far rather that we get a minimum standard review and then our more seasoned and advanced users of the Forum straighten the review out by critiquing and asking questions during the review.  If they feel the sponsor is not getting their due, then perhaps adding their own contribution along those lines.  So in essence we get the reviews to be a team effort from a discussion point of view each to their ability for a proper all round discussion.

Regarding more frequent use of the Sponsor's name in the content of the review, I have a problem with this as I'm not sure all VPS Holders will remember to apply this suggestion.  So I have a counter suggestion instead, similar to getting the sponsor name to be part of every review title.  Why don't we change the VPS Plan title to the sponsor's name instead of numbering them.  In that way it would give the sponsor massive exposure right from the VPS Plans and Holders Announcements through to using the Sponsor Plan Title during the Giveways and in any other discussion.  We would then call VPS 9 for example the Virmach VPS Plan, and then for the locations Virmach Phoenix Plan (or just Virmach Phoenix VPS), Virmach Seattle VPS, etc.  Instead of VPS 9 Phoenix. Also in the VPS Holder List Names we'll list them by sponsor title instead of number.  We could do that alphabetically.

In the case of more than one plan we could call it HostDare Plan 1 and HostDare Plan 2.  Or just HostDare VPS 1 and HostDare VPS 2.

Second benefit of this will then be we won't have to have holes in the numbers any longer when a sponsor withdraws a plan.

OK, with regard to who benefits most from the review.  For me it's not only the sponsor.  It's definitely been invaluable to me when after joining Post4VPS for the first time, I had to decide which VPS I should apply for.  And which location to choose.  I went straight to the reviews and studied each and every one I was interested in in detail.  It's also invaluable in teaching VPS Holders how to write meaningful reviews.  So the more they are critiqued by other VPS Holders in a quality way, the better.  

What worried me at the time when I was reading through the reviews was that not all of the reviews were equal to one another nor giving proper credit to the VPS capabilities and specs.  Some of the reviews were iffy, particularly when they haven't been critiqued (peer reviewed) by other VPS Holders.  For example, there was an old VPS 9 Seattle review that didn't provide proper justification in that the user was obviously not using the VPS correctly.  It's OK to slip through, provided that a learned member of our Forum picks up on it and puts it in its correct perspective.  Fortunately that hasn't been happening often though.  I think we probably also need to go into the reviews periodically and archive those that are no longer applicable such as in the case of VPS 9 after the upgrade to KVM.

OK, so if we change the name of the VPS Plan to the VPS Sponsor, then I'd also support the suggestions below that are very valuable.  As long as it doesn't read like an advertorial and there are too many links, and the quality of the Review is lost in that the user is more focused on advertising the sponsor, than providing a quality review - there should be some balance.  But yes, to me I would want to read what project the VPS Holder was using the VPS for.  In fact, they should start with the objective that was given during the VPS Request, and then explain to us how it went from that point forward. If it isn't there, then one of the other VPS Holders or Members of the Forum should ask the Reviewer what the objective was and how it was met.  We should all try to make it into a team review collaborative effort.  And make sure all the info is there.  Like what was the reliability of the VPS like, uptime, speed, quality of OS template, etc etc.

I notice you are critical of benchmarks and am worriedt this may be misinterpreted. I understand you mean the review should not only consist of a benchmark test but the whole experience, and I wish to emphasize that. Benchmarks are very impotant as that is probably the first info that most seasoned review readers are looking for.  But the review also needs the whole package of experience. The objective of the project, how it went, speed, reliability, quality of support etc.  

02. At the first paragraph of the post make sure you include Sponsor name in Bold letters along with Url to their site. This is very helpful for their brand name as well as add weight to their site SEO wise. If they have a staff member in forum then mention him or her too.

03. Talk about what are you doing in this server and how this vps work for whatever you task. Give your honest opinion about this. This is one of the most important parts of a review.

04. Benchmarks. Benchmarks are part of the review not the whole things. It's more for members than sponsors. Personally even I do benchmarks I don't post those if someone else has already posted it. It only matter if there is a difference.[Revised statement suggested: Benchmarks are important, however should not be the only information provided. The review must provide a total experience including the objective for which it was used, reliabiity, support that was needed, etc etc.]

05. It's great if you talk about what sponsor offers in their site and packages at end of the review. Provide a link to their package page.

06. Use word phrases like VPS Hosting, Web Hosting in your review when you can. Don't over do by using same word in too many places but there are plenty of related words to use.

Nothing hard to do here, but these would make your review appear in right places for right people.

[xdude]

Yeah. I hope what I said about benchmark won't be misinterpreted. I just wanted to point Benchmarks alone wont make the review complete. It's that personally I wouldn't add it if it's already posted several times and I'm getting same results. I prefer to leave a link to where there are benchmarks are already posted. Now if I get different benchmarks I would post it. But there isn't a big chance of that. I don't know if it's matter a lot to the sponsor but it is important for users to know what the give servers really comes with.

Actually I like the @deanhills idea of VPS names. It might work better. I wonder if it will work even better if we do it like RackNerd 1GB, RackNerd 2GB etc. It gives a better idea about the package. But yes this will make it easier. But anyway I don't think it's hard to do original way either. I mean We do something similar in title when we create a vps request thread.

Ofc too many links could lock Spammy but I don't think 2 links would do that. I said that because it's standard method using a link at top and bottom of a review since often reader wouldn't bother to scroll back just to find the link at top. Name at top and Link at bottom works too.

I don't think we are going to get much contribution form sponsors in review threads often enough. I rarely see sponsors post at all. If would be great if they do though.

[tryp4vps]

I guess we have to always appreciate that not every member is capable of a quality review, and we don't want to discourage members from trying their hand at writing a review. There should of course always be a minimum standard, but throwing too many guidelines could discourage VPS Holders from writing reviews.  I'd far rather that we get a minimum standard review and then our more seasoned and advanced users of the Forum straighten the review out by critiquing and asking questions during the review.  If they feel the sponsor is not getting their due, then perhaps adding their own contribution along those lines.  So in essence we get the reviews to be a team effort from a discussion point of view each to their ability for a proper all round discussion.......

I agree with this 100%.

Now our members can write their VPS reviews mostly in their own ways. And I have to admit that some of their presentations are quite creative.

In general I believe we should not have too many rules that may limit the creativity of our members, provided that, of course, they must not make spam posts.

[phoenixwolf]

I love the idea. As a sponsor, I feel like we give out these VPS but get little in return. Now I want to be clear I do not do this for reviews or more hits on my website. I do this to help others.

When I first started and did not have a penny to my name, I did this because I relied on free hosting to run my business. At one point, I had over 30 free hosting accounts and wrote around 14 posts per day to keep up. Now that I am older and have been doing this for over 10 years, I can now give back to the community.

Using the name in front of the VPS plan is an awesome idea and will help us get exposure. I also want to make sure that when people do a review on a VPS, people are honest and gentle and remember that VPS providers are using their resources to offer free VPS hosting. I know it's not free for members as you have to post, but it costs the VPS provider resources and an IP address that a paid user could be using.

Try to do your best to put up a positive review, and when it's time to post something negative to be kind about it. Allow VPS providers to solve the issue and then do a follow-up review or reply to explain that it was resolved. Everyone makes mistakes, but it's how we fix those mistakes that make a difference.

Finally, I would like to see more reviews. I would love to see a review for VPS 14. I use those reviews and feedback to improve my services.

Thanks and Happy Holidays

Vladimir S.
BladeNode.com

[tbelldesignco]

Thank you for the suggestion @xdude I went back and updated the name of my review for @cubedata. It took less than a minute to fix and it helps drive people to not only their businesses, but also brings them to the forum when looking for reviews of said Sponsor. Great job with this post!

[Honey]

Those are some really good suggestions and while I am writing my review for VPS 9, I think I will try to incorporate your views on this! That should really help you guys to understand how thrilled I am to receive such a good vps from ShadowHosting

Usually when I am writing a hositng review, I try to write it as if I was given a sample free of cost from the hosting and they'd want me to write their honest opinion about it, mostly my main goal from writing a review is to express my love for it and discuss any shortcomings (if any).

[deanhills]

Moved and stickied to the Reviews Forum.  @xdude tips are definitely recommended reading for all VPS Holders preparing a review of their VPS.

[fChk]

(...) Now I want to be clear I do not do this for reviews or more hits on my website. I do this to help others.

When I first started and did not have a penny to my name, I did this because I relied on free hosting to run my business. At one point, I had over 30 free hosting accounts and wrote around 14 posts per day to keep up. Now that I am older and have been doing this for over 10 years, I can now give back to the community.

Using the name in front of the VPS plan is an awesome idea and will help us get exposure.

Thanks @phoenixwolf! We've finally got a sponsor's reaction on the matter!..

To my mind, VPS providers main objective for sponsoring VPSs in such post2host services is(/ought to be) name(/brand) recognition, ie maximum exposure to potential customers, be it towards forum members or random forum visitors attracted by various topics featured on the board. This is why I've kept insisting on improving the forum's content...

Thus anything featuring a sponsors' name on the board can only improve exposure in that regard.

From my own experience, I wasn't aware of any P4V VPS providers before I joined the community back in 2018, but now I do have few go-To names that I can confidently recommend to others.

(...) I also want to make sure that when people do a review on a VPS, people are honest and gentle and remember that VPS providers are using their resources to offer free VPS hosting. I know it's not free for members as you have to post, but it costs the VPS provider resources and an IP address that a paid user could be using.

Try to do your best to put up a positive review, and when it's time to post something negative to be kind about it. Allow VPS providers to solve the issue and then do a follow-up review or reply to explain that it was resolved. Everyone makes mistakes, but it's how we fix those mistakes that make a difference.

Personally, I can only guarantee a honest, fair and potentially actionable review to the relevant VPS provider. This is after all what the provider needs to assess the quality of his service from a client-perspective; thus better be the sponsored client than the paid one if any criticism is due. of course, the presumption here is that we're all civil around here and that the language we use is of the constructive kind.

Thus I will interpret the "Try to do your best to put up a positive review..." as meaning constructive, and in that sense, we agree.