How to Spot Fake Reviews

No matter what we do in life, if it involves making a purchase or commitment, most of us turn to online reviews and testimonials to get some feedback in order to help us make an informed decision. The problem is, with so much competition in sales, there are always going to be fake reviews floating around. In order to make the best choices, it’s important to be able to distinguish the fake reviews from the legitimate ones.

Why Do Fake Reviews Exist?

It’s obvious that some companies will ask employees or pay others to write glowing reviews for them. And usually these types of reviews are easy to spot. There are also instances of rival companies submitting negative reviews in order to hurt their competitions’ business and boost their own. Either way false reviews, if you can’t spot them, may play a role in the choices you make and could lead you to making the wrong choice.

All Highs and Lows and Nothing in Between

Unless a person has a truly dreadful experience they are unlikely to give only a 1 star rating and have nothing to say but negative comments. The same goes for positive reviews; even if a person absolutely loves something they will usually find both pros and cons. Look out for this and try not to rely too much on the 1 and 5 star ratings. Pay more attention to the reviews that appear objective and talk about both the advantages and disadvantages.

What About the Language?

Genuine reviews will be by customers that are not affiliated with the company or product. That means that they will just talk about it using regular descriptive terms and not like a marketing professional. For example, if what you’re reading sounds like it could have come straight out of a magazine or from a journalist, chances are it’s not genuine. Genuine reviewers are also less likely to refer to items or services by their full name, i.e. Canon EOS Rebel T3i 18.0 MP Digital SLR Camera. This is usually done for SEO purposes, to increase chances of the review page ending up in search results.

There’s Passionate and then there’s Too Passionate

If a reviewer ABSOLUTELY LOVES THIS PRODUCT/SERVICE AND IT HAS COMPLETELY CHANGED THEIR LIFE AND THEY JUST CAN’T HELP BUT TALK WITH UPPER CASE LETTERS AND A LOTS OF EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!! Then they probably aren’t a real reviewer.  Ok, not all overly passionate fake reviewers will write like an over excited 14 year old, but if they are just TOO in love with what they are reviewing, something is not right.

Look at the Reviewer

First of all, look at the name.  If it looks like an auto generated name, for example: gday456927490, then it probably is. Secondly, look at the user’s profile. What other products have they reviewed? Are they all from the same company/manufacturer? Do the reviews all follow the same format? Is this product/service they only thing they have reviewed?

The Obvious Signs

If a review contains a link to another product review or sales page it’s going to be fake. Genuine reviews may mention other products that they prefer or can compare to, but they are less likely to care about providing a link to it. Also look at the date of the review publication. If it was published before the product has been released it’s probably fake and even if it’s from someone who received the product before for testing, they could have been influenced to write a positive review.

There is no definite set of rules and many genuine reviews may contain one or even more of the warning signs we’ve mentioned. Think about all of these points and use your instinct to guide you on whether a review is fake or not.