How to Spot a Fake Reviews

Fake reviews can affect the online community because they are misleading, and you can see them everywhere. About 8 out of 10 customers can say that they might have encountered a fake review, and there are some who say they are unsure if they know how to spot fake reviews.

When you know how to tell if an online review is made up, you can say how much they can influence customers when they are about to make a purchase. The large to small enterprises and each brand in between, like real estate agents that always want to know how to get Zillow reviews.

Your white label review management software will help you monitor all reviews, but you should be able to spot the fake ones. Read more.

Overusing “I” and “Me” and Many Verbs

Online reviews that use a lot of “I” and “me” will most likely be fake compared to those that do not maybe because when people lie, they try to sound credible by the use of personal pronouns. Aside from that, deceivers will use more verbs and those who are telling the truth mostly use nouns.

The Date

The date of when the review was written can be a give-away. Businesses that pay for fake reviews have the tendency to stack them in order to release a product. Reviews that come after a product release is helpful in elevating the business’ SEO ranking.

While there are many customers that use and review products for free right away after release dates, this is not the norm. Sometimes, you will be able to check if there are fake reviews by seeing if the revie date came before the release date. You can check this with your review management platform so you can filter based on the date.

Check the Other Reviews of the Author

It helps if you look at other reviews of those who wrote them. Does this person submit reviews often? Do they review other products or services? Are only certain brand categories reviewed by them, or do they only give five-star reviews? Do they have an identifiable style? Are the judgments consistent? If the answers to these questions show unusual patterns and accumulations, you should be careful. It looks reasonable to think that someone creates reviews professionally on the company’s behalf. Caution is advised when it comes to reviews. It is reasonable to think that someone is professionally creating reviews on the company’s behalf.

Generic Names or Their Profiles Have no Photos

One way to spot fake reviews is when the review comes from a faceless profile or offshore company that give bulk reviews on a site using different accounts. If you want to spot those, you should look for common names like Jane Smith, numbers and/or letters. Most of the time, they do not have a profile picture. Aside from that, these fake reviews will not have a very informative content about the product they bought.

You can use a review management system to go through your reviews and check who is lying and who isn’t.