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The power of collective wisdom is an amazing thing. Thanks to technology, you can tap into endless online reviews to help you do everything from book sweet accommodations at an unknown hotel in an unfamiliar city, to discover a gluten-free soufflé joint right in your own backyard!
Some of the more popular reviews sites out there include Yelp.com, Kudzu.com and TripAdvisor.com. Yelp excels for reviews of independent eateries, Kudzu is great when you want reviews of service businesses, and TripAdvisor is the preeminent stop for hotel reviews.
But how do you know which online reviews at those sites are legit and which aren’t to be trusted? After all, many businesses have family or friends write glowing reviews and present them as unbought and unbossed advice when in fact they’re very much an inside job.
Money Adviser, a special imprint of Consumer Reports, recently ran an article that had some eye-opening info about Angie’s List. Historically, I’ve been neutral on Angie’s List. But while Angie’s List says they are a consumer-driven service supported by membership fees, Money Adviser reveals that 70% of their revenue comes from ads purchased by the companies being rated!
So they’re playing both sides. It’s hard to give unbiased reviews — even if your heart is in the right place — when somebody’s paying all that money.
On another note, Wired magazine created a mocking flowchart titled ‘Should I Trust This Yelp Review?‘ that exposes the tiresome absurdity of sorting through reams of fake reviews to find a real one. It’s like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack!
As usual, Clark has some advice on the situation to help steer you right. And you won’t even have to tax your brain with flowcharts.
What other tips do you have for ferreting out the good reviews from the bad? Write in below and let us know!
This post was last modified on October 17, 2018 8:40 am
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