A number of people use social media to gather reviews about lodging and dining places before they actually try out any establishment. One of the most popular review sites out there is Yelp. You have to admit -- you've used Yelp at least once in your life to read reviews before deciding where to take your date. But hold your horses because according to a study made by Georgios Zervas, almost 20 percent of the reviews are fake. That's about 10 million of them!
Although Yelp has made its submissions stricter to ensure authenticity, it doesn't appear to stop offenders from posting positive reviews to offset the bad ones or posting fraudulent reviews against the competition.
The New York attorney general came up with the Operation Clean Turf initiative to investigate the manipulation of reviews, and they found 19 companies guilty of commissioning fake reviews. The fine? $350,000. According to Yelp, their filter algorithm goes through more than 42 million reviews and finds 25 percent to be fake or submitted by the businesses themselves. What about those that pass inspection?
As a consumer myself, I would advise everyone to be more critical when using review sites like Yelp and even TripAdvisor. Be aware if the review is phony or not or if it's written by a real customer. But then again, there will always be biases in reviews whether it's real or fake. My rule of thumb is the more number of reviews, the more authentic the review should be.
And my advice for restaurants, don't be lazy and find out how you can improve your food and services so you don't have to resort to the low moral ground. This article about how to attract more customers to your restaurant is available online, and I find it really practical in this modern computer age. Get out there and do research. Find out what your customers want and they'll write positive reviews for you FREE.
Although Yelp has made its submissions stricter to ensure authenticity, it doesn't appear to stop offenders from posting positive reviews to offset the bad ones or posting fraudulent reviews against the competition.
The New York attorney general came up with the Operation Clean Turf initiative to investigate the manipulation of reviews, and they found 19 companies guilty of commissioning fake reviews. The fine? $350,000. According to Yelp, their filter algorithm goes through more than 42 million reviews and finds 25 percent to be fake or submitted by the businesses themselves. What about those that pass inspection?
As a consumer myself, I would advise everyone to be more critical when using review sites like Yelp and even TripAdvisor. Be aware if the review is phony or not or if it's written by a real customer. But then again, there will always be biases in reviews whether it's real or fake. My rule of thumb is the more number of reviews, the more authentic the review should be.
And my advice for restaurants, don't be lazy and find out how you can improve your food and services so you don't have to resort to the low moral ground. This article about how to attract more customers to your restaurant is available online, and I find it really practical in this modern computer age. Get out there and do research. Find out what your customers want and they'll write positive reviews for you FREE.
