Businesses and consumers alike must learn to use discernment in evaluating the validity and accuracy of the reviews they read online. When I read the comments in blogs, forums and on Social Networking sites it is apparent to me that many have never heard this old saying:
“Don’t believe everything you read”.
For reviews to benefit us as consumers to know which businesses and products we can trust, more people who can write accurately and honestly need to be contributing their opinions. The more individual reviews there are the more likely we are to find the truth.
Click the Image to see stats from EZLocal on where Google pulls reviews
Valid reviews benefit us all. They allow us to avoid businesses that offer horrible service, save us from losing money buying bad products, and discover small businesses that really care about us.
We must hold business communities like Merchant Circle and Yelp accountable for their actions and not allow them to charge businesses protection fees or encourage them to allow merchants to manipulate real reviews.
At the same time we do not want to allow any individual to use the threat of bad reviews to hold businesses hostage or businesses to sue over bad reviews. Although we have no control of what others do, the bad behavior of some who claim to be online reviewers reflects poorly on us all.
Do your favorite small businesses, friends and neighbors a favor and write reviews of their businesses and services and add product reviews after you use what you buy. To make that easier for you see the section under the bold heading Where to Write Reviews in our post about Supporting Small Businesses.
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Sometimes, I regard negative reviews as a result of two possibilities. Either the business is really bad as the reviews say, or it’s because those who liked it didn’t bother posting a positive review.
I’m in the business of reviewing invoicing apps, and make my reviews as objective as possible.
Well Said. But i would like to tell you a fact that some businesses or web stores only post positive reviews and do not post negative reviews that are submitted. They believe money wins out over honesty.
Hm… never thought of it. Nothing can be fully trusted, but we can reduce the chances of getting duped by reading reviews from a varied sources. I particularly trust user reviews more than expert reviews
Normally I look straight at the blog portion of the review site and see if there is updates – regularly. I find with most affiliate style review sites they do the site then leave it and just do seo to knock out harder working reviewers.
I recently started a site and love the topic but find that google often ranks crappy review high for reason that are beyond my realm of knowledge. anyways great graph and it pretty much nails home what i have been thinking along !! cheers.
I do not trust the reviews that I read on Google Maps as some of them seem really fake. I also know that many businesses use fake reviewers such as friends, family, or employees to review their business. I do not think there is a way for Google to decipher between the real and the fake reviews. I trust the reviews on Yelp more than those on Google.
Great Post, i have reviewed some products of my own and i have written a few reviews but it’s sometimes hard to believe what others are saying because all they care about is making a commission.
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December 8, 2011 at 5:17 am
Good topic, I just take reviews online as third-opinions, sometimes people lack of product information so reviews online will help to get more image of it.
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October 4, 2011 at 11:16 am
While it’s true that many people who review are not experienced – nor are they always unbiased – it does give an opinion from real people who most of the time are more honest than websites looking to sell items.
It always amuses me still the people on amazon who write reviews that are nothing to do with the product, but just highlight their incompetence!
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Same as Sean, I usually use online reviews for software and new gadgets. To be honest, I do that at already proven sources. As for companies, hotels, restaurants and similar things, I only believe the spoken word of my friends or my personal experience.
I hate to say it, but reviews have become more of a merchandise themselves. Too much for me to believe them anymore.
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In a niche that I used to be in, there was a “professional” review site, reviewing a couple of companies. I traced the whois IP back and saw they were all connected. really sneaky.
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I do not completely trust online reviews but whether its fake or real for anything that I want to buy or invest in, I have the habit of first reading the reviews. I think genuine users write it so differently, also, the opinions of the majority always is the truth.
Twitter: allaboutmexican
July 13, 2011 at 6:17 am
me i read reviews but if i really want to try the product or service out i do it. reviews are good for references and opinions.
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Even if you have some negative thoughts about a product just post it down in the comment box. At least you are trying to be real and truthful about the experience you had after using a particular product. Being honest will help the others to get real idea and clear information as to whether they should opt for it or no. But there are some people who always give positive feedback for the company; they are members of the company itself. The company pays them for the feedback they give. So apart from the feedback, one should always research, and also ask for feedback from any of the friends who have purchased the same product before.
I need to read some reviews before I buy anything and have been burnt a couple of times with good reviews for horrible products. I have come up with ways of filtering out the biased/bad looking reviews and they seem to work but not always. I wonder whether getting reviews from my social network will be a better idea. Recently joined http://www.getcliqup.com to check this out and so far I made a couple of happy small purchases based on what my friends claim to own. But of course, the key is to have more and more friends also signup and frequently use these kind of sites.
Yeah, I’m agree with author, We can not believe or justify that particular article or information is correct. Because many online user not have deep knowledge about topic. Only there few writers have good knowledge, And other fake user only try copy, paste and modify the article. So avoid scam postings.
I tend to find these reviews pretty unreliable unless there are a significant number. One or two reviews always make me sceptical, as it’s not a wide enough cross section.
Reviews cannot be trusted easily because the internet is filled with internet marketers trying to spam their way to sell their own products. Often they have never used the products themselves before reviewing. However websites like YELP are the sources of original customer reviews.
[Link edited to use KeywordLuv - see directions in my post on How to Use KeywordLuv.]
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