Which Review Sites Can You Trust?

Review is considered as the judgment of the products or a company. That is published online or a business site for other consumers to know about the product’s quality and features. Moreover, a compilation of reviews of events, trends, and items is called a review. 

Review web site publishes information about businesses, products, and services to inform clients or consumers to purchase the featured items. These websites use Web 2.0 techniques to gather reviews from different review sites. Most of the time they take the help of a professional review writer to write reviews about a specific topic. A study shows word-of-mouth affects consumers so much. 

Why Are Reviews on Review Sites a Big Deal?

Reviews have a significant influence over the marketing policy. 86% of consumers consider reviews as a resource for online shopping. When a consumer tends to buy a product they look for online reviews. If the reviews of the product are reliable the consumer can make purchase decisions or deal with any services.

Positive reviews help increase sales of a product, and bad reviews can ruin the company’s online reputation. Because consumer reviews are the best way to gain consumer’s trust to encourage more people to engage with the company. That’s why some companies buy reviews from different review websites. However, are all the reviews available online genuine? If not, how to verify a review? 

How to Verify a Review? 

Imagine you are going to buy the best TomTom Rider for the motorbike as it has the best user review. You know nothing about the product, Now how to know if the reviews are genuine or fake?  

According to Firm Gartner, a technology researcher, approximately 10-15% of the online reviews are fake. These reviews are either given by the fake consumer or paid author. However, these reviews have a significant impact on the consumer and company.

If the reviews are fabricated and the consumer purchases something worse than expected, it is bad for the company. Therefore both consumers and businessmen should be aware of fake reviews and follow the below steps to verify whether the reviews are fake or genuine? 

  • Check the review if it is verified or not. If not verified, consider it as a fake review. 
  • As a consumer, notice if multiple good or bad reviews have been placed by the same user from the same location. You should consider the review as fake. Read at least the last 10 user reviews to justify the product.
  • As a site owner, notice if someone has placed multiple reviews within a short time from the same location you are in. If so, it may be your competitor, not your clients.
  • If the review is published before the product is launched, surely it is fake. 
  • Compare the same product review on other sites such as Amazon, Yelp, and Trip advisor. Check the reviewer’s profile or if it is the only review that praised or complained about the product or place, it is likely to be untrue. 
  • Take a look at the product’s description as there are positive and negative reviews. 
  •  If “I” and “Me” are overused in the review it may be fake. Because when people lie and try to emphasize themselves as a true user by using a personal pronoun. According to research by Cornell University, the deceiver uses more verbs and the truth-teller uses more nouns. 
  • Be careful about the scene settings. As an example, restaurant reviews should include the hotel’s Bathroom, price, and services. On the other hand, the deceiver will mention unnecessary things such as holidays, vacations, etc. 
  • Check the name mentioned in the review as experts. Most likely they don’t have a website or if so, it is not related to the subject. 
  • If a shipping error or user error is mentioned in the review and gives a thumb down, avoid the review as the company is not responsible for shipping or user errors.
  • As a business owner, verify the purchase to verify the review. If not it will be an unverified review. 
  • If you suspect the review, try to reach the reviewer. There will be no response in the case of fake accounts. However, a true reviewer will respond now or later.

List of the Best and Trusted Review Site

Because of the increasing profit of E-commerce, affiliate review websites are increasing in numbers day by day. There are hundreds of review sites available but all of them are not genuine. Here we have made a list of the top ten trusted review websites.

Review WebsiteU.S. Alexa RankingReviews Best ForAvg. Monthly U.S. Traffic% U.S. Traffic (of Total)
Google My Business1any business158.03 million19.6%
Amazon3e-commerce related85.44 million63.6%
Facebook4any business85.57 million23.1%
Yelp64any business40.47 million87.5%
Trip Advisor118related to food, restaurant, travel28.27 million50.4%
BBB (Better Business Bureau)647any business6.15 million72.1%
Yellowpages694any business10.5 million70.0%
Manta957any business6.48 million67.0%
Angie’s List1,755service-related business5.44 million72.4%

Which Review Site Can You Trust?

Which review site you should use depends on what type of business you have. As a business owner, you can choose one of them to purchase reviews but I prefer to buy Trustpilot reviews. Because Google mines reviews from different sources to manage the keywords. On the contrary, Trustpilot reviews enhance more business opportunities to appear in more searches. 

Comparatively, Amazon is the source of product reviews and yelp is the local business review site. On the other hand, Trustpilot is the primary source of company reviews. Take a look at the specialty below: 

  • More than 3 billion Trustpilot review impressions each month. 
  • 1.2 million new reviews are posted on Trustpilot every month.
  • Trustpilot has more than 400 million Google impressions per month.

Conclusion 

There are a lot of review websites but which review site should you trust? 

Not all of them contain genuine reviews. You should check the list above and choose one of them. However, To find the true review, you have to understand the core of the review. 

We have gathered some valuable information to identify the reviews. As a consumer or a business owner it is important to find the best and authentic review sites. Therefore, I hope, now you can identify the reviews and also you have the authentic website lists that you can follow.