Maybe you've come across some of the most obvious ones. Reviews by satisfied customers gushing about how great the product they bought is. However these days, sellers/affiliate marketers/etc hire writers to write reviews of products for them. Most of those writers are being paid to write reviews that the seller will approve and for that reason you wouldn't expect their reviews to be objective because no seller will tell you their product is bad/ of inferior quality and so on. Is there any way one can tell that a review has been made by someone who has actually used the product? Should we look more for negative reviews so we can find out everything bad about something before we buy [it]?
If there is no product that is being shown that they have "bought" from the site, then that is 1 way to indicate that it is a fake review, as far as video reviews are concerned. A good example of what I'm talking about would be this one, it obviously looks scripted:Log In A review should show you the product that they bought from the site, and give feedback on it, like this one:Log In The written reviews, on the other hand, are quite tricky. There is really no way you can know if it is fake or not.
That is a really good question that I ponder often. It's so hard to know what is true or false on the internet. So far I haven't been able to find any reliable method of finding out if a review is real or fake. I can only go by my gut feeling. Usually, paid review writers are very clever about injecting just the right amount of scepticism, and making it all sound quite balanced and realistic.
It's hard to guess really especially when a skilled writer wrote the review. But I've read somewhere that you can spot a fake review if they tend to talk about the product in terms of vague features rather than the actual tangible one, I don't know if that makes sense.
A genuine review will always include the pros and cons and how they could improve a product or compare it to others. I always look at the writer's profile and what else they have written. The problem with reviews made for hire, often the writer is given the Key Selling Points and told to only talk about those. If they do not offer any bad points or why it is better than the others on the market, then you know it may have been fabricated.
I'm always a bit skeptical when a review is far too positive, especially when it's a complete outlier when compared with other reviews. When you see a 5-star review of a product that averages around 3.5 and it doesn't even mention any flaws, you know you might as well ignore that one...
I usually only pay attention to the comments that are verified buyers and if I come across one that doesn't show the verified buyer sign then I wouldn't consider it in my decision whether it is positive or negative. I also see some comments on apps that I suspect are paid reviews but those I'm more loose with because it's not a physical product anyway so I'd just need to look at other reviews on other sources to make a better decision on whether I should download the app or not.
It's hard to spot the fake if it's done professionally, I'm guilty of that believe me. But the one thing I can tell you is if the reviewer includes a detailed relay of his/her experience it's probably true. Check for the list of Pro's and Con's it's your best bet, most fakers don't have a solid listing when it comes to this part.
First, I read the negative reviews. Many times it won't apply to me or it's just not important enough for me to pass up the product. THEN I'll read the positive reviews. I don't look at any individual review.. I look at the whole. Then I look on other sites and decide based on everything I've read. I haven't been disappointed yet.. critical thinking. If that doesn't work, a really good return policy lol.
If someone is writing a glowing review of a product that everyone else had a bad experience with, then they are probably a shill for the company. It's possible for one person to have a better experience with the product than others, but if they don't bring up any of the drawbacks of the product, that's a red flag. A real review will say something like, "I agree with others that waffles stick to the waffle iron, but I resolved it with cooking spray." If they don't even bring up that the waffle iron sticks, it might be a fake review.
Sometimes noticing a review is fake is easier than at other times. When the person talks too much good things about what they are reviewing without saying anything negative, or when they show the product too much and act unnatural it's a given that it's a fake or a sponsored review. Some people make it hard though, because they are good at making the fake look real.
If a review site has a product just overwhelmingly positive, then I'll usually do a few more google searches to see if those reviews are legit. I generally just do that anyway to get a good sense of what people have said about the product. The more reviews you read, whether good or bad, generally the more truth will come out about the product. I do generally trust bad reviews though, especially if there are a lot of them, because people don't often take the time to bash a product online.
I find that if a product has one or two bad reviews and then loads of good ones saying similar things, then they might be fake. I don't think you can really tell though because nowadays most fake reviews are well written and a lot of sites don't accept them otherwise.
I have a gig on Fiverr offering to plan a budget vacation in the U.S. for $5. Nobody has actually purchased the gig. But, someone did approach me to write a fake review on Tripadvisor for a hotel in Myanmar. I, of course, declined. So, be careful. I always read reviews closely and look for a trend. I throw out the best and the worst and any that are vague.
This is really annoying to me. It is hard enough trying to purchase something online and then you have to try and sift through the reviews and try and find the ones that are actually legitimate. I rely on the reviews to help me make an informed decision when purchasing a product and to know that some of them are fake is sad. I wish there was a way to find this out as well. I guess we just have to hope that what your reading is somewhat true. Stinks. Danyel
When it comes to most general reviews, you can tell the fake ones from the real ones pretty easily. It's amazing how many people leave stupid reviews that contain no helpful information and then reviews that are highly negative because a person didn't know what they were buying. Those reviews are real, although it's sad that they exist in the first place. For more thorough reviews, I tend to trust the ones that present outside data, such as speed tests or other metrics (when applicable). If a person's just gushing about an item without backing up their points with actual data, then I'll ignore those reviews. There are thousands upon thousands of fake reviews out there, unfortunately.
