NCM Online is one of the leading authorities on the quality of various web hosting services, including the search engine rankings and site usability resulting from individual hosting packages.
Each year, the organization hands out web hosting awards for a number of categories, and the winners are publicized online soon after the awards are given. NCM currently has nine different award categories given to web hosts, and more are anticipated in the near future.
Determining the best quality of hosting features is a painstaking process, but representatives from NCM carefully compile and analyze collected data to determine which of each web hosting category stands out the most in quality. To ensure objectivity and a lack of bias, the organization uses independent third-party testing services. The resulting data is then sorted and interpreted to select a winner in each category. The nine categories of the NCM Online Web Hosting Awards are:
- Best Web Hosting
- Top 10 Web Hosts
- Fastest Web Hosting United States
- 100% Uptime Rating
- Fastest Web Hosting Worldwide
- Best Web Hosting Coupon Codes
- Best Affiliate Program
- Best Online Marketing
- Best Budget Web Hosting
NCM has established affiliate relationships with a number of web hosting companies, so the use of third-party data is also important for helping to maintain those relationships. Due to the time and effort NCM Online puts into the criteria for award selection, this organization has also become a trusted and authoritative source for unbiased information on different web hosting companies. In addition to recognizable names of established web hosting companies, NCM publicizes information and reviews about smaller, lesser-known web hosts with beneficial features.
The list of winners from the NCM Online awards has become a trusted source of web hosting comparison information for small business owners, bloggers and other individuals who want to set up a high quality self-hosted website. Along with NCM’s data-driven process of hosting service testing, the company also offers hosting package coupon codes, reviews of inexpensive hosting plans and comparative testing results for the average load times of various hosted web pages.
The 2015 Web Hosting Awards Results
For the 2015 awards, NCM thoroughly tested and reviewed more than 50 web hosts for each of the nine available prize categories. The winners for each category are as follows:
- Best Web Hosting: A2 Hosting
- Top 10 Web Hosts: Certified Hosting, HostRocket and various others
- Fastest Web Hosting United States: A2 Hosting
- 100% Uptime Rating: Numerous low-cost hosts
- Fastest Web Hosting Worldwide: DreamHost
- Best Web Hosting Coupon Codes: HostGator
- Best Affiliate Program: A2 Hosting
- Best Online Marketing: GoDaddy
- Best Budget Web Hosting: HostNine
At the beginning of the selection process, NCM Online purchases the least expensive available hosting package and evaluates it for speed and quality. The company then performs a standard test for load times, average uptime speeds and several other factors. The uptime test is conducted on each hosting company for cycles of 15 minutes each, and the entire testing period lasts a total of 10 days. The data is then complied and evaluated for the best quality speeds, along with other evaluated features.
Along with page loading speed, each of the 50 web host candidates gets evaluated for customer support, available bandwidth, disk space, ease of use and monthly price compared to offered webmaster features. With the established parameters, NCM testers then average all the ratings for a given web hosting company and create a cumulative rating for each web host. The hosting company with the highest rating for a given category receives that respective award. The winners of each category enjoy the online publicity and the credibility of endorsement from NCM Online. The web host ranking method details, the speed testing results and the current published promotional codes are also available on NCM’s official website. Individuals comparing the speed, quality and pricing of different web hosts often find it well worth the time and effort to review this published information from the NCM Online awards.