Guest Comment: Beware dodgy online product reviews

smudger1946

I think we all know that most reviews are not honest.
Read them with a large pinch of salt.

mabinogion_2

Yeah, I've noticed that the reviews on amazon sometimes read like subtly disguised marketing blurb so I tend to look at reviews on other sites to back them up.

The Tripadvisor forums are an invaluable resource for the canny traveller who is looking for re-assurance of review credibility. We all know there are people writing reviews to big-up their own businesses or trash their competitors, so the reader has to use their smarts and read between the lines: how many reviews has the reviewer written, are they a suspicious sounding one-review wonder or have they contributed a number of balanced, helpful, well written reviews and forum posts?

Even the Good Hotel Guide is not without its negatives. When I bought a copy of their latest guide hot off the presses, it featured many inaccuracies including a recommendation for a hotel that had closed down, and yet they happily trash Tripadvisor in the media on a regular basis.

Tripadvisor has flaws which need urgent attention, but they have a big plus with their active forum community that can provide up-to-the-minute traveller information that other such websites can only dream of. Many a rental scam has been outed in dramatic fashion on their fast moving London forum. Someone should turn that stuff into a detective novel, lol!:p