Top Consumer Reviews – Secrets to Avoid a Fake Review

Online reviews are a great way for people to gain an insight into what they can expect when they use a certain business, online or otherwise. Unfortunately however there are may businesses out there who have tried to take matters into their own hands and leave fake reviews to try and make their business appeal to the consumer. It is for this reason that we have great websites such as Top Consumer Reviews, who specialize in helping people o check reviews to see whether or not they are genuine.

If you are worried about whether or not you can believe a certain review then there are some secrets which you could look out for, as a rule of thumb, which may give you a better indication as to whether or not you can trust the review.

Personal Pronouns

When most people lie they often overdo certain things in order to prove that they are telling the truth, even though they are not. This is why research carried out by a team at Cornell university found that the large majority of fake online reviews will feature the heavy use of personal pronouns like I, me and myself. This is done of corset try and compound the fact that the person was indeed there, when of course they weren’t.

Phrase Repetition

Often when reviews are faked they are done by a company who the business has paid, and they will very often ask for certain phrases to be mentioned in the review. If therefore you see a phrase mentioned multiple times in the same review or if you see multiple reviews which have the same phrase in them, it could very well be a clear sign that these reviews are not in fact genuine.

Stick to Middle of the Road

Looking at reviews is less about positive and negative and more about finding out what experience can be expected. This is why the best reviews to read are those in the middle, then 3 and 3.5 out of 5 reviews. Very few people are likely to give a business 5/5 because that is just human nature. Those 3 and 3.5s however will give a much better insight into what you can expect when you use a certain business. Always remember that everyone has different expectations and that is why trusting the numbers may not be the best idea, but reading the actual review can give you a lot of value.

Spike

If you see a spate of positive reviews all left within a couple of days of each other which buck the trend of previous reviews then this should certainly be a cause for concern and it is likely that  the business have paid for their reviews to be fixed. It is better to just avoid business who have done this because it would certainly appear that they have something to hide.

These are just some handy rules of thumb which may help you out.