It's Cyber Monday, and while you're busy shopping online, chances are
you'll see lots of user reviews on various products. While the majority
of those reviews do come from real users like yourself, who are
passionate enough to share their opinions on a product, many of them
could be fake, left by the vendors themselves to either promote their
product or, in many cases, smear competitors.
While it's exceedingly difficult to absolutely prove that a review is
faked, here are a few tips on spotting those that aren't from real
users. These will come in handy -- not just today, but whenever you go
shopping online.
Absolute singing of praises with no downsides; or a total dismissal of any good qualities
When was the last time you approved of a product unquestioningly
without any negatives? No matter how good an item might be, chances are
it also has one or two shortcomings, however minor. That said, a
five-star review with unqualified compliments, such as "perfect" or
"absolutely the best," that offers no downside to balance those
opinions, is very likely a plant.
Conversely, chances are also good that a review that dismisses a
product in absolute terms is from either a competitor or a fanboy of
another brand.
Reviewers' names
Reviewers' names are also telling in determining whether a review is
legit. Generally, fake reviewers don't take the time to create real
names and tend to go with variations of another screen name, or choose
meaningless random names, such as beatsjam1234, pfb6736, nb32003, and so
forth.
Review dates
The date of the review offers lots of information about how genuine it
is. If you have a number of five-star reviews on the same product,
posted on or around the same date and written in a similar tone, chances
are they are counterfeit. Also, if a user review professing extensive
hands-on experience is published on the release date of a product or
shortly after, it's also likely a ruse. It takes a long time for a
typical end-user to compile real-life experience with a product. Typical
of this are the user reviews on the iPhone 5, which were left days before the phone even came out.
A single review per account
Generally, you have to create a user account to write a review. If you
see an account that has posted just one single review for a particular
product, or reviews only products from a single vendor, it's highly
likely that it's a fake review. In this case, the date the account was
created and the date of the review are also very telling, especially
when they are the same.
The tone of the review
The tone of the review is probably the most telling factor when
assessing how real a review is. If you spot a review that reads like a
press release or a commercial, offering information about features and
extolling how superior the product is when compared with its
competition, that review is most likely planted by the vendor.
That said, I am getting weary of both five-star and one-star user
reviews. Reviews with ratings that fall in between are generally more
legitimate and useful. Also note that real users talk more about
reliability, performance, and overall value, and they are almost never
happy about high costs.
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