Warning: Posting Fake reviews using different IPs can get you SUED
 

This is a fairly common practice in Online reputation management SEO. Ouch. http://searchengineland.com/seo-comp...reviews-172526

Dad: where is your text book?
Daughter: it's all on the internet, i can search it.

Everything on the internet is true.

lol. NY Attorney General is on the hunt :)

Here's another article about this from today's NY Times: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/0...ref=technology

I had a friendly argument recently with a friend who works in Silicon Valley over the worth of anonymous reviews. She thought you could pick your way through wildly varying reviews of, say, a restaurant, and come to a fairly accurate conclusion about how good or bad it was. I disagreed as I think anonymous reviews are inherently worthless.

Anyone else care to comment on this?

I agree with you strongly.

Most reviews which are from people you do not know (or have an extensive sense of who they are from reading a lot of what they write) are inherently worthless, not just anon ones.

If you know someone personally or you read their work/reviews regularly and have a sense of their taste, then the reviews are worth reading.

Agreed.

Why?

Comparing apples to apples
Lack of provenance
Lack of transparency
Most reviews leave out key details

With all the above said, THE REVIEW FORMAT is still one of the best ways to sell online. Why? Instant credibility through a psychological LAZINESS most consumers have.

How many poor reviews of small businesses are done by friends, family of a close competitor in an attempt to hurt business? 10%? 20%? More?

He who lives by Yelp, dies by Yelp.

only people that suffer are the smaller guys. :2 cents: if your making millions not a big deal pay the fine keep moving. (get a slick attorney for next time)

True enough.

I guess it depends on what the reviews are about. Take Amazon for example. If an item I am considering buying has a lot of reviews I will read the top few reviews and then I always click to read some of the 1 star (or whatever the lowest rated reviews are) and in many cases those low reviews have nothing really to do with the product. They will be pissed because it never got shipped or because they were charged too much or it arrived broken. It has nothing to do with whether or not the actual item is good. I can just dismiss those reviews, but if the review, bad or good, is well written and does a decent job of explaining the person's point of view I find value in that.

I just saw a post on Reddit about a guy getting owned on Yelp. He wrote a review saying that a place smelled bad and how the staff all looked like they were high on crack and how the place was in a seedy part of town.

A waitress from the place responded to his review explaining that the guy came in and ordered a beer, but didn't have ID. When asked for ID he pulled open his shirt and showed her his chest hair as proof he was of age.

Cocksuckers! Really? They have time for that? What about a little effort to shut down all copyright criminals... seems to be a bigger problem to me...

:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup

The restaurant and food lobbies are HUGELY rich. It's always about money.

Amazon is a little different than Yelp, for one thing a review can be marked as "Amazon Verified Purchase" which means the reviewer actually purchased the item.

:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup

Very true. That is something they have that helps set many of their reviews apart.

Very true. That is something they have that helps set many of their reviews apart.

I give any merchant site credit if they allow negative reviews.