TripAdvisor Admits to Fake Reviews
June 11, 2009
TripAdvisor is trying hard to work a PR spin on the claims that many reviews on the site are fakes. Most of the fake reviews are positive, planted by the reviewed properties themselves, but a few are glaringly negative -- perhaps subterfuge by a competing entity. Either way, there are plenty of "users" taking full advantage of the anonymity that TripAdvisor allows. Unlike other sites that based user reviews (such as Amazon), TripAdvisor does not employ a "real person" check wherein a third party verifies that a reviewer is the person he or she claims to be. Travel guru Arthur Frommer has long bashed TripAdvisor for having fake reviews on the site; though slow to respond, the travel site is finally making some statements about the truthiness of the reviews.
We believe our nearly 25 million reviews and opinions are authentic, honest and unbiased, from real travelers, which is why we enjoy tremendous user loyalty. Also, the sheer volume of reviews we have for an individual property allows travelers to base their decisions on the opinions of many.
The integrity of TripAdvisor reviews is protected by three primary methods:
1. Every review is screened prior to posting and a team of quality assurance specialists investigate suspicious reviews
2. Proprietary automated tools help identify attempts to subvert the system
3. Our large and passionate community of more than 25 million monthly visitors help screen our content and report suspicious activity
When a review is suspected to be fraudulent, it is immediately taken down and we have measures to penalize businesses for attempts to game the system. Penalties are handled on a case by case basis.
In addition, they’ve added this warning message (in an ominous red font with a hazard symbol attached) to properties that are the most suspected of this kind of fakery:
Message from TripAdvisor: TripAdvisor has reasonable cause to believe that either this property or individuals associated with the property may have attempted to manipulate our popularity index by interfering with the unbiased nature of our reviews. Please take this into consideration when researching your travel plans.
My advice? Read through several reviews and form your own opinion; don’t just take the good or the bad. Also, TripAdvisor, you might want to raise the bar just a little bit when it comes to user reviews—perhaps you could aspire to the stellar level of, say, Yelp.
Comments (4)
Posted by george on Sat Jul 11, 2009 at 04.15 am
if you want to see an example of blatant self reviewing on tripadvisor then look no further than
La Villa Marbella
Posted by alan on Sat Aug 15, 2009 at 05.03 am
We actually stayed at this place and all I can say is there’s something very fishy about all the 5/5 reviews. It’s not such a bad place but it just isn’t the smart boutique hotel it says it is.
But more worrying is the obvious tie-in with Tripadvisor and Expedia. It seems nobody is ‘allowed’ to post a negative or even moderate review for this place.
What can we do as normal travellers? Just keep spreading the word I guess and don’t believe what you read on Tripadvisor.
Posted by julie on Tue Sep 1, 2009 at 03.21 am
my aunt stayed at La Villa Marbella in the spring after reading dozens of 5/5 reviews on Tripadvisor talking of a wonderful ‘boutique hotel’, only to find a collection of rooms down a narrow street miles from the beachfront
she joined Tripadvisor solely to write a review, giving it 3/5 i think and they threw it out for no reason! she then wrote another review, and guess what? they threw it out again
it stinks and it must be corrupt and to do with profit from the expedia tie-in
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Posted by Thomas G. on Fri Jun 12, 2009 at 08.34 am
I hope that was a joke about Yelp being “stellar.” They actually pay people to qrite reviews. Also, it’s infested with fake reviews.