Online Ratings

I remember back when ratings on websites used to mean something. Most notably, I was planning a trip away for my husband and me. It was going to be the first trip away without our kids since we had gotten married. It was probably about 8 years ago. In real life years, that doesn't seem like that much, but in online years, it feels like decades ago. LOL

Anyway, I did some research and found this great site called Tripadvisor. I'd never heard of it before. Through tripadvisor, I found this awesome small hotel in Aruba that people really didn't know about. It was incredible.

Fast forward 8 years and its really quite obvious that the bulk of the reviews on tripadvisor are fabricated probably by professional reviewers to make these places look much better than they are.

Its the same way for pretty much every site now. It used to be that I could go on Amazon and find some great books through their awesome ratings system. Now...its all a bunch of BS and most of the books that are pulled up are horribly written self published garbage that somehow all have 5 or 4 star ratings.

I can't tell you how much I've read some version of 'I booked this hotel/bought this product because of all the excellent reviews and was so disappointed'.

What was one of the ultimate benefits of the internet when it came to consumer education has turned to poop.

How do you go about wading through reviews? I still find them helpful, so still want to use them. I've since found myself discounting most of the perfect scores even though I'm sure some are legit.

 

That's similar to how I've been reading them. If there aren't a ton, I'll read them all. If there's a lot, I tend to start in the middle since I figure those are the most likely to be legit.

I feel like I've started to be able to tell which are fake as well. Sometimes the titles are so hokey and seem to be worded like an ad that I automatically discount them.

One thing I can't stand is when retailers like Amazon allow people who have not purchased the product from them to put up reviews. I think that's where most of the issue comes from.

 

Yep...I do the middle ones too.

After posting this, I did look it up online and there's articles on companies getting hefty fines for fake reviews. Doesn't seem to be helping that I can see.

 

I agree Laura, ratings are not worth a damn now, sadly!

You find folk negatively rate items just because they did not read the instructions or there perception of say a holiday was higher than what they paid, so if you pay buttons for a holiday you are not going to get 5* service.

I see tech items marked down due to folk buying the wrong item, so no research on their part to not reading the bloody instructions, then blaming the product.

I just read reviews positive and negative and form my own judgement from a few sites.