Fake reviews aren’t fake news – it's a real & still growing problem on Amazon.com
Bottom Line: It’s almost an oxymoron. We have more fake reviews online than ever before and more people who rely on them than ever before. Fake reviews are anything but new but despite the claims by companies like Amazon.com that they’re fighting them, well if they are, they’re losing to say the least.
Researcher, Which? Just wrapped up their latest review of online reviews on Amazon.com and the results were compelling. If you haven’t heard of a brand but it ranks really well it’s probably full of fake reviews. For perfect 5 star reviewed products, here’s what they found:
- 100% of the companies/products were unfamiliar to their experts
- 87% of the reviews were unverified (generally faked)
And here’s the thing 97% of us use online reviews when buying something new. So, what should you do? Here are their tricks to the trade to cut through the fakes...
- Look at a reviewer’s profile. If they do a bunch of reviews within the same day, it’s almost always a faker
- Look for all 5 stars or all 1 stars within reviewers profiles – fakers almost always do all 1’s (to hurt competitor’s) or 5’s to prop up their products
- One-word reviews. Real reviews are almost never one word. Fake reviews almost always are
It’s a pain to have to fact-check the reviewers but it’s better than being duped.