We’ve been aware of several practices that can lead to misleading user reviews, but there’s one less obvious one that you should know about before you start your holiday shopping season.
The holiday season is no longer just about buying gifts for others; many of us use the season’s deals and discounts to buy new tools, gear, and home items for ourselves too.
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The big thing to be aware of are called Syndicated Reviews.
Let’s say there’s a Retailer and a Brand. Retailer participates in aggregated reviews, and Brand has some user reviews on their website.
It’s November, and a new Special Buy Deal of the Day is being promoted on Retailer’s front page. It’s on sale, TODAY ONLY!! Let’s see what the reviews say. 100 reviews and 5 stars? WOW, it must be a GREAT product!
But if you look at the reviews, they are all from the Brand’s website. Each and every one of then. At least one of them – I skimmed around – mentioned receiving the product for free. Most reviews are vague, some mention completely different products.
I believe I saw the same model on sale in another retailer’s deal of the day last week.
Conclusion: This is a “special buy” model that was put together for the holiday season to sell at “deal of the day” and “special buy” pricing.
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Does that it’s less powerful than other products in its product family? Built to lower quality? Are the accessories different? What about things like the power cord?
All those positive reviews for the product, are they even for anything like this product?
When talking about tools, say cordless power tools, things go from confusing to very confusing, and potentially misleading, to very misleading.
Let’s say there’s a new 5-tool cordless combo kit. Reviews might be aggregated from bare tools, standalone cordless kits, or other combo kits.
I’ve seen so many different inaccuracies. Reviews for a premium version of a saw appear for a kit that includes the cheaper “combo bundle” version. Reviews for a special buy combo kit include reviews from the standalone kit that is bundled with a higher capacity battery pack.
What can be said about an aggregated review that mentions “great runtime,” when the reviewed kit came with a higher capacity battery pack than the one that’s on sale and pulling in the review?
Speaking as a consumer, and I suppose an objective observer, this is a nasty and misleading practice. What’s the purpose?
I can understand that it can be potentially helpful to pull in relevant reviews, but the aggregation engine isn’t just pulling in relevant reviews, it’s pulling in related and less exact reviews too. There are inaccuracies and the potential for customers to be mislead.
It has been nearly 2 YEARS since I brought this up with contacts at one retailer that’s doing it, and nothing has changed.
When I say that there’s the potential for customers to be mislead, it works both ways, in convincing them for or against a product.
There was one time when the following was said about a new Milwaukee sander:
Good tool but trouble
High maintenance
Poor hook & loop pad
poor poor quality
Soft start mess
Filter made with low quality plastic
But the new sander hadn’t even started shipping yet!
The website was pulling in reviews from previous reviews for the older product at the same retailer, the Canadian retailer’s site, and the manufacturer’s site.
When I asked about it, I was basically told that the reviews are collected from a number of places in several ways. Basically, it’s described to be an automatic process.
To be fair, they do mention where the review came from, but will the average customer question that at least some of the aggregated reviews might be talking about slightly different products, and in some cases completely different ones?
The uncertainties make this a messy practice, and I just don’t like it.
That Guy
It might be helpful for consumers if some one could clearly document this… name names, show the proof. If [XYZ] brand or retailer thinks nothing is wrong with Syndicated Reviews, they won’t care. But if it is a dirty work, they may back away from it when called out on it.
Stuart
Unfortunately, a lot of retailers and brands do this.
Besides, not naming names might persuade people from those (and other) companies to read this and hopefully evaluate/reevaluate their user review syndication and aggregation practices.
Additionally, this way, there’s more awareness. Call out Retailer A, and readers might scrutinize user reviews from Retailers B and C a little less.
It’s like warning someone of a prank. “Somewhere in your house, in November,” vs “whoopie cushion.” If you’re on the lookout for a whoopie cushion, you might be less cautious in scouting out other pranks that might befall you.
The yeti
Well Stuart. In my case. I usually only buy a few trusted brands. Also I look at your site regularly as I have found it quite educational . The articles and comments both . I have bought and will continue buy prodycts that get good reviews on this site . Provided I want or news the product of course . Keep up the good work
msergiob
The same here…
I read Toolguyd before any major purchase.
Scott K
This was one of my first thoughts as I read this post. I continue to trust your reviews and objectivity. Especially when I need a tool for a project that I am less familiar with. Keep up the great work!
The yeti
The auto mistake feature is really annoying on my phone. Sorry about all weird words. . I’ll try and turn it off . I can make my own mistakes without Samsung’s help
Hilton
That’s why I only really worry about recent reviews. Some codger complaining about the product in 2014 may be of no relevance today.
Bob
I know you need to keep the lights on, but your current sponsor Home Depot is definitely guilty of this. It appears the only place to get independant appliance reviews is Consumer Reports, but even they have their problem that they cater to a rich clientele so if you are shopping more value based you have to temper your expectations.
Jon
If you look at HD’s deal of the day today, he’s in fact basically calling them out without mentioning them by name.
Stuart
Yep. But they’re not unnamed because of the sponsorship, but for reasons discussed here: https://14cyiuhvcgv.com/syndicated-aggregated-user-reviews/#comment-1127816%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
My intent isn’t to warn about HD, but all retailers who engage in this review-boosting practice.
They’re far from being the only ones doing this.
It might not seem obvious, but more reviews suggests increased popularity, making deals and even non-discounted products much more compelling.
I’ve already spotted new promo-destined kits at Amazon and other retailers.
With Amazon, products grouped together share reviews, but at least it’s a little clearer which product a particular review might be linked to.
John S
Well I’d agree with you except when Amazon does something stupid like this:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074F3M2W8/
Where there are 6 versions of an “Extender” with almost 4 sub menus of versions each all under the same listing. Meaning its almost impossible to tell what product people are reviewing, its all jammed together and unless you read every single one and cross back with the description its a jumbled mess. Why does Amazon keep doing this kind of terrible aggregation of reviews and model versions?
kcaz
If you click on see all reviews you can filter them by model under the all formats. If you know what model you want then that can help clear it up a bit.
Adam
LOL. I spent an hour+? last night trying to figure out what friggin model that is. It drove me nuts. Finally I went to a 3-party site that had a comparison chart of the vacuums, and I had to figure it out based on dimensions, amps used, bin size. What PITA. I didn’t even look at the reviews. Even if they referenced what model it was BASED off, I’d probably be fine with that.
Reading the first few lines of your post, sounded like the nightmare of a time I had last night. Thanks.
Brad
Handy site to help spot fake reviews on Amazon: https://www.fakespot.com/
Also (off topic) handy site to track Amazon prices: https://camelcamelcamel.com/
Tom Sharp
I LOVE camelcamelcamel! It’s shocking the first time you use it and see how much certain items’ prices fluctuate on Amazon. If you see it occasionally dips dramatically and are in no hurry, you can set up price alerts. I have saved a lot of money using it. Bought a lot of camping equipment that way, for instance, since there’s no way I’ll need it for another 6 months at this time of year. Certain tools, I’ve found, don’t drop very often though, except maybe at some points before the holidays. Maybe it’s just because tools have far fewer sellers and firmer pricing than, for instance, sleeping bags.
Stuart
I check there every now and then, but find that they sometimes don’t update frequently enough or go back far enough.
I check my Amazon cart every morning and whenever I’m on the site, and have come across price drops. With my last purchase, I checked CCC for giggles, and saw that their latest price was a day old. If I had been waiting for an alert, I would have missed the deal.
Hang Fire
Camel^3 has allowed me to get things within hours of a crazy price drop, and then the price drop goes away immediately after my purchase. I have price watches on practically all my wish list items.
Occasional price checks probably means no one has a price watch on that item.
john
My reply hasn’t appeared yet are they being screened now?
Stuart
No. Only first-time comments, or when you use a different name with the same email address, or different email address with the same name.
In this case, *shrug*. I don’t see any issue. Temporary server or browser hiccup?
john
I tried resending a reply and it said duplicate reply detected but it hasnt appeared yet….
john
I just bought a generator on cost**.ca based on reviews… there was a mention that reviews were pulled from the champion website but I assumed it was for the exact product.. you shouldn’t have to assume otherwise imo
On a side not has anyone tried any of the Dew** magnetic bit holder/driver kits?
I noticed at least 3 models all claiming 10x bit retention and was wondering what the differences between them might be
john
Paul
Thanks Stuart for this article. I have the same major problem with snow blower and mower reviews. I find that most of the time these aggregate reviews a very detrimental and one bad review can easily get posted to 2-20 different retail sites. So a one out of 10,000 issue with a specific machine instantly becomes a “don’t buy” issue to most of the buyer who were interested.
I’ve started to add these paragraphs to reviews this year. This is an example for a Toro snow blower review.
When you read snow blower reviews you are going to find reviews that state “the engine would not start,” “the engine won’t stay running.” and “the engine runs rough.” You will find these reviews for all brands and sizes of snow blowers. 98% of the time engine problems with name brand snow blowers are either fuel or operator related. Snow engines run/operate differently than your lawn mower engine and because of that, I suggest educating yourself on how to store fuel, how to keep your fuel clean and how/why your snow blower engine runs the way it does. This information will go a long way to liking your new snow blower.
Please read this article to learn more: Buying A New Snow Blower FAQS – Read This For The Truth – MovingSnow.com
By the way: The Toro snow blowers sold at a dealer are the exact same snow blower as sold at the retail stores like The Home Depot and ACME Tools.
Aggregate reviews. Many websites scour the web for reviews and then post them on their website. In other cases, one disgruntled owner will write the same or similar review in as many places as they can. So what you end up is many reviews about one specific issue from only one person. I see this quite a bit on The Home Depot and Toro sites. Just remember, for every bad review there are thousands of Toro snow blowers sold and doing well. Please read the date the review was written and the wording to determine if there is an actual problem. If there ever is a recurring problem Toro identifies it and makes the changes so it gets fixed. In other words, negative reviews more than two years old are not worth your time to read.
My Toro snow blower won’t throw snow. I have read two reviews where the Toro snow blower won’t throw snow or it plugs constantly. Two reasons I that may be happening. 1. Toro 2-stage snow blowers are among the best for not clogging but even they will not throw all types of snow well. Slush or snow that is more water than snow won’t go through your snow blower. That’s the type of snow where you stomp your foot in the snow and it just spatters. You see this snow at the end of your driveway or/and the day after when the temperatures are above freezing. 2. It won’t throw snow at all. Over the last ten years, I have seen this only three or four times but it’s still listed on the reviews. When brand new this is usually an assembly error at the factory. If the new owner has used the machine it’s usually due to something the snow blower picked up in the snow and that object is plugged in the snow blower.
Don’t bother to read Toro reviews that are negative and more than 2 years old. Two items of note: 1. Toro’s Sub Zero Poly Chute. Don’t bother to listen the “old farts” who say “plastic chutes are junk. You have to have metal ones.” Chute, deflector, and ACS are made of a special cold-weather material durable to -104˚ F and guaranteed for life. It is also rust-free, so there’s no binding, and snow and ice won’t stick. I know a couple of dealers who sell hundreds of Toro’s a year and have not had an owner with a chute issue for years. 2. Since Toro has switched to their own labeled engine all engine issues have gone away. Toro’s engine is made by Loncin – one of the most respected small engine manufactures in the world.
I also spend a lot of time reading reviews from owners, reading and watching video YouTube reviews from other websites and of course keeping up with Consumer Reports latest test and reviews. Over the last ten years, I’ve become pretty good at sorting out honest reviews from the otherwise biased, paid, only here to make money, and only here to complain ones.
I want to caution you about one type of review website in particular. There are dozens if not hundreds of sites that are only interested in making money through Amazon. If you read an article or watch on YouTube about a “Top 10” review or a “2017 Best” review and the ONLY place they send you is Amazon assume they did no research and are only trying to get you to buy something on Amazon through their affiliate link. Don’t get me wrong, Amazon is actually a great place to buy certain snow blowers but don’t believe the sites that only send you to Amazon.
fred
I’m mostly in Sanibel when its snowing in New York and Maryland where my other residences are located. I did buy a snow blower a few years back. It was – not a Toro – but an Ariens – online and did the final assembly myself. Since my son house sits – we decided to test it out ahead (October) of his potential need for it in . With fresh gasoline – following instructions – and rereading them – we could not get it to start. Talking to Ariens did not help – but they put me in contact with a local dealer – who came out to service it. He was sure that it was just a minor issue – tried a bunch of things (with both pull start and electric start) and a squirt of ether – all to no avail. The machine was loaded on his truck – and whisked away – to be returned some weeks later. I was told that a defective part was replaced – and the problem had nothing to do with my final assembly. He also told me that he had not seen this issue before despite having sold and serviced many of the same model.
Anyway my son says that it has never failed to start and run well since – now over several years of use. I assume that what I experienced was some sort of “infant mortality failure” that was not necessarily typical of the fleet. To your point about online reviews – I’d say that some negative reviews probably represent similar outliers – where the problems encountered were what prompted the reviewer to post. Others who had good experience might well be less inclined to post a review – so you may see a batch of griping about a statistically small issue.
Tom Sharp
What retailers are doing this?
Paul
Sears doesn’t that I know of.
To make matter even more complex a few of the brand’s websites also pull their reviews from the retailers’ sites.
Toolfreak
Incredibly, Sears has one of the better websites when it comes to reviews, especially for tools.
If other retailers websites did like Sears when it came to reviews, this Syndication/Aggregation thing wouldn’t be as big of a problem as it is.
Patrick H
Too bad they haven’t been relevant for several years now.
Patrick H
Honestly, if anything this may be more a result of them not keeping up on current web trends.
Toolfreak
Sears has been relevant and they’ve still been where a lot of people buy tools, just they’ve been selling lots of lower quality Made in China Craftsman tools to people who are clueless that the country of manufacture ever changed.
However, the reviews feature a lot of that sort of thing too, Sears being called out for Craftsman tools being Made in China, buyers expressing their anger and displeasure, and warning others when a particular tool is now China-made.
MT_Noob
The cat and mouse rating game continues. Luckily I have one place I go to for honest reviews and transparent disclosures. Toolguyd.com
Keep up the great reviews!
MT_Noob
Stuart, has anything changed regarding posting comment? I submitted one and it looked like it did not go through, then when I tried submitting again it said it was a duplicate… Once I refreshed the page it was clear that the first one did indeed go through. I’ve never noticed that before at your site. (using chrome as my browser if that matters to your testing)
MT_Noob
The above comment was submitted and went through without a hiccup.
Maybe its just a temporary glitch.
john
MT_Noob … I tried twice to submit and it didn’t go through… I replaced certain names of retailers with abbreviations and it went through on the 3rd try
May or may not be a related issue
Stuart
No?
Hmm. Temporary server hiccup?
Maybe the spam-checker wasn’t working?
If your comment never showed up at all, maybe it triggered a false positive?
Tool of the trade
You have to be foolish not to take posted online reviews with a grain of salt. Unless it’s a video review made by someone other than employees of the product’s company, then you shouldn’t take it without discretion. If a product has nothing but 5 and 1 star reviews, then you know they’re fake. They’re either reviews by employees or paid for. That’s why I read the 3 and 4 star reviews. They are likely to be somewhat truthful. Reviews that have tmi on how good the product is, is fake. Just like the ones that have tmi on how much it sucks. Online retailers shell out big bucks for people to write reviews for certain items sold on their website. They even pick and choose which reviews they want to post. All of them do it.
Nathan
Yes Stuart , I’m glad you took a moment to mention this practice that ramps up a bit more every holiday season.
I hope people at Home Depot, Lowes, Best Buy, and others are reading this. As they all do it to some degree – some way worse than others.
RC WARD
What you are describing has been going on with online purchasing from day one and is just one of the downsides to buying online. Add to that shipping issues (damage to product) and online buying is a risky business to say the least. I would rather buy from a “real” store any day of the week, but those are drying up fast.
Patrick H
I’d argue that you will run into this anywhere and it’s not limited to online shopping. I have definitely had salesman feed me whoppers before.
fred
The fact that the Internet is fraught with both sincere and honest – factually-based information and a fake junk, with most everything in between, comes as no surprise. Sometime the variations in even honest reviews comes about from contextual differences. What an occasional user likes for home use – might not cut it for a hard commercial or industrial user. Then there are reviews that are clearly based on first impressions – not long-term use. Considering that most reviews talk about experiences with only one sample of a product – a negative review may say more about QA/QC at the factory or some other random issue than what a testing of multiple samples detect. When there are enough reviews on Amazon to be statistically significant, you still need to read between the lines to see what they mean for you. Finally when I see a batch of reviews clustered by date – I begin to wonder if they are possible shills – placed by some entity that either wants to promote or denigrate a product.
On a related topic, I hear radio ads for companies that purport being able to fix your internet ratings. They apparently offer services to companies (e.g. contractors and restaurants) and professionals (e.g.. doctors and lawyers) to supposedly “correct” negative reviews.
I understand the concept that someone with an “axe to grind” can post on the Internet negative comments that are unfounded or represent a one-side perspective. Some of the “corrective” techniques, however, border on what I consider obfuscation.
Ct
What can ya say. It’s just another extension of false advertising.
I get sick of it as well but as long as it’s legal here us consumers just gotta watch out for ourselves and be smart enough to do the full research. Cars, tools, electronics, and on and on
A W
Thanks for pointing this out Stuart.
I agree this is annoying and frustrating as a consumer.
Stuart
I did that when Amazon’s deal went live before trying to determine if it was a good deal, very good deal, or “you call that a deal?”
Michaelhammer
It’s making it exceedingly difficult to find honest reviews. It was already tedious enough weeding through the “I’ve had it for an hour and it seems great” reviews and the one star reviews because it happened to get damaged during shipping. An end user shouldn’t even write a review until they have used it for a month. To further complicate things websites leave reviews up for ever. The product could be two or more generations newer than the review. And now there are sponsored reviews, syndicated reviews and aggregated reviews! Aye dios mio! Thank goodness for Toolguyd, but we need more. How do we get Amazon to help us? If they had the wherewithal they could really make a huge impact on their own site. It could only improve their position in the marketplace. I wouldn’t look to HD or Lowes these are the most base of retailers and they care not how they separate you from your dollar.
Toolfreak
The aggregated reviews wouldn’t be a problem IF they were useful, coherent, and about the exact same product being sold and reviewed.
The larger issue is manufacturers hiring these services that send out free “samples” of products to “customers”. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing if the services actually bothered to send samples of tools to customers that actually used tools. Instead, these operations are overrun by stay-at-home scammers who don’t have any need or interest in the particular products, they just cast a wide net and receive as much free stuff as they can, then resell it online.
THAT’S why you’re seeing all these vague reviews that don’t tell you anything about a particular tool. Most times, they are just entered on a review website and the scammer just enters enough review-sounding words to meet a minimum word count and keep the free products coming. The more positive reviews they make, the more free products they receive, the more stuff they have to keep reselling.
It’s a cycle that needs to stop.
Unfortunately, companies seem to be too lazy to handle their online PR when it comes to product reviews and customer feedback. I’d think it’d make a lot of sense in this day and age to hire a PR person to curate stuff like reviews, customer feedback from website messages, email, social media, etc. and report that in the daily/weekly meetings to owners, supervisors, managers, etc.
No, instead they outsource it, send products out to people that don’t even actually use it, just resell it online for profit, type some words out on a website, and leave their actual customers unheard.
I don’t think things will really change on this front until someone at the manufacturers/retailers actually CARES – and that often doesn’t happen until theres a negative effect on sales and profits, and the problem is pinpointed as being something to do with samples/reviews/etc. Then, MAYBE someone will do something, but I still have my doubts.
fred
Maybe someone from the IRS is reading this and will get after all that unreported income that is generated from the receipt of “free” samples.
Alternatively, maybe the IRS will restrict the business expense write-off of merchandise giveaways for the purpose of obtaining favorable reviews.
I doubt that either of these ideas will ever come to fruition.
Toolfreak
You’d have to do it by taking away the write-off, most of the people that generate income by selling the stuff they get for free don’t even file a tax return, and in some cases, they don’t need to, their income might be below the minimum amount required to pay income tax.
I’d rather the companies simply stop dealing with the places that do such a poor job and send products for review to people who don’t even use them.
I’m pretty sure they could locate a LOT of die-hard tool users who would REALLY like to receive a free sample of their products AND would use the heck out of it AND give some serious, useful feedback that could be used to improve the product and increase sales.
If only there was a website with a forum where people who liked and used tools gathered to discuss and review tools so it would be easy to find them.
fred
It’s probably unrealistic to think that folks are going to stop buying from Home Depot and some of the other retailers that do this. But if the IRS were to require that Home Depot get the SSN’s of the folks they give stuff away to – and then report the income to the IRS it might stop the practice.
Regarding your point about filing taxes, we all know that there is a big underground cash and barter economy. When you run a legitimate contracting or other business – you collect your fees by check or credit card – and pay your employees a fair wage by check reporting their income. We competed with other so-called professionals who offered discounts for cash payments and paid their “employees” in cash. Many of these workers, who were often picked-up via a shape-up at the local Home Depot. Some were being exploited – required to work extra hours – with little or no training, minimal supervision and lax accountability for worker safety or the environment. We were never about being the lowest cost provider – rather building our reputation by focusing on offering the highest quality at a fair price. I think that we were quite profitable doing what we did – but clearly the “bottom-feeder” part of the market is larger than the top. As a people we seem to decry the influx of illegal aliens into the country and the loss of manufacturing jobs to China. But then we turn around and seek to buy the cheapest products at WalMart and hire cash-only “cheap-charley contractors” to do our lawns or side our house. We debate about tax-reform, immigration laws and the national debt – but if everyone paid their taxes and refused to hire illegal workers – we’d go a long way to resolving some of these issues (end of rant.)
Tool of the trade
The only way to get rid of this problem is to completely ban online reviews with the exception of limited video reviews. I think it’s really f’d up that everyone thinks that they have to rely on what a review says to influence what they buy. The problem is that there’s too much of the same thing made by hundreds if not thousands of companies. And each one of them has their own brand gimmick. Think about it. Mass production for us to consume, destroy, repeat. Back in the day before online retailers, people found out for themselves if something was worth a damn or not. Or they talked to a neighbor or family member or a friend. A reliable source. And there was a lot less production of the same thing by everybody. There was a lot more individualism to a brand when things weren’t made with the intention of being disposable. There wasn’t & shouldn’t be a need for 100 different brands to make a circular saw. Wtf do we need that many brands of anything? If things were made to last, then there wouldn’t be a need for bogus online reviews.
firefly
So I wanted to comment on this from a business perspective. We own a small bakery with a decent following. Our rating on google is 3.7 out of a 5 stars scale. So our rating is only slightly above average. It’s definitely not the kind of rating that we are looking for. In all the negative reviews, one or two are factual but one off experience. A majority are half truth or fabricated for various reason. Some of the reviewers will intimidate business so they can get a free meal. Majority of them are based on one item that they didn’t like, which are purely opinion based. I investigate a little further and it look like a lot of those reviewer just wanted to write something to build up credibility for their profile.
So the take away is that people are a lot more likely to write about their negative experience as have been observed in other comments above mine. Then business also have to deal with mass reviewer that will drive by to give out medium review to build up their profile. There are also people just wanted to game the system to their advantage.
We thought about “fixing” the problem but we haven’t for a few reasons. First off, we do have a decent following so our business is reasonably good. Beside we are a family own and operate business so we can live off tight margins. So it’s hard enough for us, imagine a business on a larger scale with much more employees and other expenses to deal with. I can see why buying review can be matter of survival. Secondly the problem with getting more positive review (whether via buying review or running a campaign) is that it validate review site. Some or most of which will extort money from business to move the rating curve to one side or the other.
As a consumer I don’t like the practice. As a business I still don’t like the practice but I can see why it become necessary when almost everyone else does it.
So to those who complaint, have you write a positive review lately? Do you write a review on every single instance? Have we done our job to educate our friend and family about the problem with bad/fake reviews? Even if we are aware of fake reviews, how likely are we going to look down the list to look at a 3.7 rating place when there are an abundance places with 4.5-5 bought rating? So even for us that understand the problem with bad review and fake review, most of us still are more than likely to look at the one that are on top of the list that buy reviews. I ask those question because I am guilty of all of the above. In short it’s easy for us to complain but many of us haven’t done (or haven’t done enough) our share to make it less necessary for company to purchase reviews.
So honest business aren’t even in the game to compete. So the moment a business have to purchase review just so they can have a skate on the game, how much review should they buy?
Regardless of industry, there always will be site like toolguyd that exist with integrity that truly help steer us in the right direction. However I would consider those visit tool guy to be a rare minority. Beside site like this can maintain their integrity is because they are small. Once they reach a certain level it’s much hard to maintain that level of integrity. In short once a site need to rely on external funding then there is a much bigger chance for corruption. Let say that toolguyd get really big one day, I trust that as long as Stuart is in charge he’ll do his best to maintain the integrity of the site. But he won’t be with us forever. Will the next guy maintain the same level of integrity? So it’s only a mater of time before a site like this cease to exist or failed to deliver on it original goal. New site like this will popup and a new cycle begin…
I see some mentioned why not just give the tool to get review from those who truly use them? I am sure most company love to do that. It’s just that if company send out tool for a review they want a good review that have an impact to their bottom line. A good review doesn’t have to be completely positive but if it’s negative it should be objective enough. Not all reviewer can do that. If business send out a tool to a no name Joe, there are no guarantee that they’ll get a review or anything back. So there are value to send samples to some No name Joe that have a greater chance of generative a positive review.
What happen if a company release a new product, have a one off hit that cause a negative review while all the “good guy” wanted to wait six month to write a “real review”? So now they have a one star rating for 6 month while product sit on the shelves with bills to pay? So I believe there are places for short time and long term product review. The second problem with long term product review is how many of us actually does it? After 6 month the excitement usually ween off. So yes, the tool work, all is well but time for a review? Not likely.
Those are some of the challenges that a business have to deal with as far as review. Business also need help to solve those problem. If we can help them solving those problem I am sure in the long run we’ll see better review…
In short, the whole review and rating system are a flawed system to begin with. I am sure there are business out there that are gaming the system. However the rest of the business are just doing what’s necessary to survive. The bigger problem is our own internal bias. Surely we are aware of the problem but many of us, including myself, continue to be victimize by it. As long as us, the consumers, are still largely influence by bad reviews, whether consciously or unconsciously then this is one problem that both business and consumer will have to deal with.
z2w
Personally I go straight to the 1-star reviews, and consider whether the writer sounds credible and if so whether the issues mentioned would be a problem for me. I do this even when the average rating is super high.