How To Analyze And Identify If A Product Review Is Real Or Fake?

With advanced technology, most people do look for and purchase their goods online. Besides referrals from family and friends, you can ascertain if an online product is good by going through other clients’ reviews. The reviews can be in online marketplaces, company websites, social media sites, or Google reviews. Are all reviews genuine? With the rising competition, many companies struggle to get the best reviews for their products. This situation has led some companies to hire individuals or use computer bots to create positive reviews for their goods. It is essential to identify if the review is real or fake before purchasing any product. How do you analyze? Check on the tips below.

  1. Pay Attention to Consistency

If you are the consumer of the product or the site owner selling different kinds of products, you need to monitor how reviews of specific products are done. You need to check if multiple online reviews carrying the same message got posted within a short time. Most fake reviews look similar and get posted minutes apart, praising or talking negatively about a product. The positive reviews might be reviews from companies selling the products, while the negative ones might be from businesses wanting clients to reject their competitors’ products. For an online business owner, you can check who posted the review. It might be your next-door competitor. 

  1. Check on the Date

It is essential to check the date when the review got posted. When a product is launched, it takes time for it to reach specific markets and for the consumers to use it. As evident at Fin vs Fin, genuine reviews take time, probably after some days or months, when the clients have used the product. Immediate reviews or those that come before the launch of the product are usually fake. They might come from the company staff or marketing agencies trying to promote the product. The negative reviews might be from competitors trying to kill competition. You must be extra keen on the date the review got posted. 

  1. Too Good to Be True

With people coming up with different tastes and preferences, it becomes impossible to satisfy everyone in the market. This situation means no product can get all positive reviews, each rated five stars. Even the best brands in the world do not score this. While it’s possible to find many positive reviews with fewer negative ones or vice versa, one-sided reviews are always fake. It would be best to shun off one-sided reviews since they don’t portray the product’s accurate picture. If all the one-sided reviews appear genuine, you need to check if the seller verifies the accounts that posted the reviews. Also, you don’t expect all of them to provide the same star rating to the product. It should be a red flag if all the reviews got posted at the same time or minutes apart. 

  1. Check On the Language Used

Most genuine reviews will have a well-written or a mixture of different languages from different clients from other regions. This situation is possible in prominent market places such as Amazon. What happens when all the product reviews are written in the same language, coming from the same region? This situation will automatically mean the reviews were done by one person and are all fake. Also, if the reviews read more of infomercials other than a genuine view of the product, there you have a red flag. You also need to look for odd formatting, lack of punctuation on all reviews, and if writings are in capital letters. Genuine reviews are well punctuated, better written, and have proof of purchasing the product. Some clients will even go ahead and share a video or picture of the product and its use.  

  1. Check Out Reviews From Other Platforms

The product you are looking for might be on sale on other platforms. For instance, if you check the product on the company website, the product might be on sale on Amazon or other multinational market places. It would be best to check reviews of the same product on different websites to come up with a better conclusion. Try to pick information only from the trusted websites for your judgment. Some websites require proof of purchase before one does a review. When you find different reviews for a single product, try using the reviews from verified purchases. 

With the growing review fraud, it is essential to buy products from reputable websites and check if their reviews are real or fake. While many websites are working day and night to keep off the fake reviews, you need due diligence before using any review as a purchasing guide – some come from the companies selling the products. It is also essential to look for genuine websites that offer honest reviews and ratings.  

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