Going off on a little tangent here: Listings at hosting "comparison" sites are more or less universally based on how much of a kickback the site owner is getting from the host, and/or how good of a promotional deal they can give their visitors when they sign up for that host.
Compared to these sites, this article is chock-full of data. And I don't see a referral link anywhere. :)
Most of them are, I replied a few comments above you in this thread because my startup's goal is to fix the pay to play hosting review space. You seem to have experience dealing with it and I would love to hear your thoughts.
Make it transparent. It keeps me honest and let's you verify. Also using tons of data. I've got somewhere near ~130,000 reviews in my database. Once it's setup, it runs itself, the costs are quite low. The marketing is honest reviews. Something nobody else can really claim, if I cheat, I lose my only advantage. Take a look at the linode page and tell me what you think http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/24/linode
I will be clear, I am not profit maximizing at all. The amount of companies trying to buy placement is staggering. It's very easy to understand why my competitors would do it. I could probably make 10x the money if I accepted their offers. But I don't plan on just doing web hosting forever, my goal is to scale the technology and review lots of things. If I sell out my brand now, who would ever use it later?
The trick is to do both. Create one site that's honest and pure (like you have), and a completely separate site where you sell higher placements to companies. You then don't care about what people think about the profit making page.
...and by so doing, make the world just that little bit worse off by making it harder for people to find and identify genuine information. Would that fewer entrepreneurs were totally okay with that.
Compared to these sites, this article is chock-full of data. And I don't see a referral link anywhere. :)