How to Tell If Reviews Are Fake

The process of understanding how to tell if reviews are fake can help you save the reputation of your business from unethical competitors who can be on the hunt to take you down. Unfortunately, some business representatives spend time and resources trashing their competition to get to the top. Whether it be on Facebook, review sites, or blogs, it seems anything can happen; you can get fake reviews at any time. 

So, to help you learn how to spot fake reviews online, let us go through some essential steps. But here are some specific steps on how to spot fake Yelp Reviews.

How to Spot Fake Reviews Online

STEP 1 Beware of People who Set the Scene

According to a Cornell study, setting the scene in reviews is a red flag. For instance, honest hotel reviews are more likely to incorporate keywords like ‘bathroom,’ ‘price,’ and ‘check-in.’ Fake reviewers tend to use words that set the scene. For instance, ‘business trip,’ ‘vacation,’ or ‘my wife.’

STEP 2 Look out for the Overuse of Verbs and Words like ‘I’ and ‘me.’ 

Online reviewers that use these words usually try to make themselves more credible by using personal pronouns. In addition, honest reviews use more nouns, while fake reviews use more verbs.

Note: For businesses, proper know-how on how to test new products (with customer involvement) can greatly reduce the percentage of fake reviews that hold water.

STEP 3 Watch out for Profiles Without Photos and Those Using Generic Names

Fake online reviews usually come from a company that has no face. The same company will push more reviews on the platform through multiple accounts. To spot these types of accounts, look for names such as Jane or John Smith or accounts with names that are just full of letters and numbers. Approximately 99% of the time, these accounts do not have a profile picture.

STEP 4 Examine the Timing and Postage of Reviews

If the overall number of reviews spikes within a short time frame, this indicates a fake account. But there are exceptions. When a product launches, or on Christmas, Black Friday, or any other major buy season, there can be a spike in the number of reviews.

STEP 5 Look for the repetition of phrases

Browse through a couple of reviews and see if you can find common phrases or words. For example, suppose you find repetitive phrases in different reviews. In that case, the client that needs fake reviews requires these phrases in their reviews.

STEP 6 Dive Deep into the Profile of the Reviewer

Professional reviewers also dish out fake reviews. In most cases, they are given a product for free, and then they provide a five-star review. Although they are hard to spot, you can find them by clicking on their reviewer profile. Next, what if you see only five-star reviews without any negative reviews? The chances are that they are receiving payments for reviews. Finally, you should be aware of a red flag if the reviewer has five-star reviews for products or services from the same company. 

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