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How to Identify Fake Reviews

29th June 2021

As our daily lives have moved to a much bigger online focus with the services we use and the products we buy, different social features let us know whether or not we’re able to trust the service in question or if the product we’re looking to buy is of the quality needed. Reviews have in fact become such a vital part of the way we use the internet that often times people will seek out as many different customer reviews as possible before making any decision – but in the past few years in particular there has been a huge uptick in the number of fake reviews obscuring the truth. The prevalence of negative Google reviews and the potential for targeted reputation damage have created a complex landscape for businesses to navigate.

Some companies resort to posting fake negative reviews to harm competitors. This digital battleground highlights the importance of maintaining the authenticity and credibility of customer reviews. Businesses may try to legally delete fake negative reviews that are false or defamatory. This can be done with the help of information gained from rechtslupe.de or similar websites educating about targeted online defamation. So, how can you identify the real reviews from the fake?

(Image from blog.sift.com)

Be sure the features match – Whilst many fake reviews tend to be generalised and short, some will pick out specific features to target as something wrong, for services particularly with the likes of online gaming like slots where you can find some here these targets may also be generalised – but as many fake reviews are written by bots, the features may not always match, and the review could be complaining about one thing that the service or product doesn’t even have. This can easily be missed when reading through quickly and not paying much attention but are clear identifiers that some reviews may not be legitimate. 

Tools and sites – It has even become so much of a problem for some sites that there are now tools and websites dedicated to looking at reviews in order to identify if they’re legitimate – simply paste in the link to the review page, the reviews will be identified, and each will be given a score or something similar in order to determine how likely it is that the review is legitimate. Whilst these certainly aren’t 100% accurate, they do give a great indication of how many reviews you can trust, and you’ll likely be surprised to see just how many are flagged up as potentially fake, particularly on the bigger sites and marketplaces.

Review trust ratings – Some sites have even turned to using external features that assign reviews with a trust rating, whether this be based on the number of reviews they’ve written in the past or seeking out similar usernames online and more – much like the above, they can give the review or more importantly the reviewer a score and can help to show those that may be spamming fake reviews, as well as those that can more likely be trusted too.

Over time through using the above and other tools, you’ll get better at noticing which reviews look good and which look problemed but gaining an understanding of what to look out for can certainly help save you a headache later down the line when buying a product that may not match its description or using a service that doesn’t give what it should.

Jack Braintree

Hi! I am Jack Braintree, I am an avid traveller, and I love to shop. I am a software engineer, and I have spent seven years in the workforce, working for IT companies, full time and as a freelancer. I created dropjack.com to provide in-depth reviews, tips and tricks for shoppers

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