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These days, nearly any site that sells a product or service has a “reviews page” or a section dedicated to customer testimonials. Everyone from major store chains to online sites that allow you to compare airport parking offer up customer reviews with the intention of helping you choose on the best way to spend your hard-earned cash.But how can unsuspecting consumers choose if they can trust the reviews presented to them?When you’re evaluating a website’s reviews, there are two things to consider.

1. It’s Not All Excellent News – Sure, when you see that a company has nothing but 5-star reviews, you get a excellent feeling about them.Remember, though, that in the real world there are always going to be problems, no matter how consistently reliable a product or service may be. If there are absolutely NO negative reviews, chances are that they’re being suppressed.

2. Who Is Writing The Reviews? – Be wary of sites that allow just anyone to submit a review.Oftentimes, the sites in question will offer an online form where anyone at all can fill in a few details and then say anything they want.You’ll find the most reliable reviews on websites that only offer the opportunity of writing a review to people who have really used the service or product, usually via a link that is sent directly to the customer.

One type of site that seems particularly vulnerable to fake reviews is the travel comparison website. In an age where you can do nearly anything online: compare car hire companies, buy budget airline tickets, book a boat trip up the Nile or even just compare airport hotels, the possibility of coming across bogus testimonials is increasingly prevalent. One site that has experienced some distress with fake reviews, and consequently with some negative customer perception of their services, is TripAdvisor. Companies were promising hotel owners that they would post positive reviews of their businesses on high-profile sites (like TripAdvisor) in return for a monthly fee.One hotel really received several reviews and they hadn’t even opened yet! TripAdvisor, to their credit, have many checks in place, along with human moderators, that police the reviews submitted to them and either remove anything questionable or place a warning on any set of reviews that are deemed possible fakes.

Some fake reviews will nearly always sneak through though, even with a system of checks in place.If, but, you learn to spot the signs mentioned above, plus apply some ancient-fashioned common sense, you’ll be able to avoid them.

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