Spotting a fake review can be challenging, if you are able to spot fake reviews on products or services it would save you a lot of costs and regrets. Thus, it is important to know a to detect a fake review design to lure you into buying a product or service online.
It’s not anything new on the internet and social media that traders and entrepreneurs of different products and services showcase reviews from their customers. One of the major reasons they do this is to draw people’s attention and possibly lure them into taking the decision of buying the product or service.
This is very important to entrepreneurs because humans believe in testimonials more than self-appraisal. However, it’s been noticed these days that some persons who do not have any testimonial or review of what they sell or offer often send out another person’s testimonials which is actually fake.
With the rate of internet fraud these days, it is important to ensure that the reviews either on Google, Online Stores and Amazon are actually real.
Therefore we will be discussing the different ways you can easily detect or spot a fake Google, Online store or Amazon reviews.
How know fake reviews on Google, Amazon and online stores
How to spot fake reviews on Google
Google is a Multinational Technology Company and it is an internet search engine which uses an algorithm that is designed to retrieve and order search results to provide the most relevant and dependable sources of data.
Fortunately, Google fights against spammy and illegitimate reviews yet it is still not sufficient as scammers upgrade their tactics often.
Some red flags that indicate fake Google reviews include;
Extreme negative or positive emotion
A review that’s 100% positive or negative is a sign that the reviewer’s intentions weren’t genuine. In a normal review, people will usually list some negatives, even if their overall view is positive.
Excellent or poor grammar
A genuine review will read like it’s written an average person. It might have a few minor grammatical errors, but it should be clear without sounding overly formal. A possible sign of fake reviews is when the quality of writing is either extremely good or poor.
Excessive humor
Lots of people treat reviews as a place to test their comedic skills. But many a time, humour and sarcasm can make it difficult to tell whether a review is genuinely being funny or just writing a bogus review to get a laugh.
As a general rule, ignore reviews that don’t actually discuss the product. More helpful reviews won’t wander off into tangents like these.
Focus on irrelevant details.
Some of the points we’ve discussed help you spot reviews that are completely faked, but those aren’t the only useless types of reviews you need to weed out. There are also reviews that aren’t relevant because they don’t address the key question: whether the item is worth buying.
How to know fake reviews on Amazon and other online stores
We basically have different Online stores and AMAZON is a common and popular online store.
Online stores allow individuals and businesses to sell or display products for sale online. By so doing, people and customers visit these stores from different parts of the world to buy these products.
There is also an opportunity for sharing of reviews, these reviews can make more customers get the product. But over time, fake reviews have been detected in these online stores.
How do we detect them to avoid purchasing a product based on a wrong review? Here are some various signs you can use to spot a fake review on Amazon or other online stores:
Generic tone of review
A fake reviewer usually uses a generic tone to review a product as they don’t know much about the product’s technicalities. So they use words like “good”, “amazing”, “Awesome”, “worth the money”, etc., to describe the product. Some more advanced reviewers may go into deeper details, but in the end, they won’t add any further information that isn’t already available in the product description.
Check time stamps
This is actually a really good way to find fake reviews as sellers usually ask multiple people to give a fake review at the same time. Such service providers offer packages of 50 or 100 fake reviews for a product with a set price, so usually, those reviews are also done in quick succession.
Set the review filter to “Most recent” and scroll through. If there are many 5-star or 1-star reviews posted over a short period, like 1-3 days, then there is a possibility those reviews are fake.
Review length
Fake reviews are either short with hardly a line worth of content or consist of a max of 1-2 sentences. Fake reviews are not very long because the reviewer has less experience with the product, and they have multiple reviews to write.
And if the seller is only interested in a quick 5-star rating and doesn’t incentivize the reviewer much, they will leave a very short and generic fake review.
Review rating
Sellers always instruct the reviewer to either leave a 5-star rating or 1-start rating depending on whether they want a positive review or negative. These ratings impact the overall rating, so it becomes necessary to give these ratings.
It’s not a good giveaway of fake reviews as mostly genuine reviewers also leave the same rating, but it’s worth considering along with other methods.
Look out for similar reviews
Many sellers provide a template for fake reviewers to craft their reviews around. If you notice multiple reviews highlighting the same information just worded differently, it could mean fake reviews.
Use of English
Many of the fake reviewers reside in third-world countries and don’t have English as their first language. If you see multiple broken English reviews, it could mean that the seller has paid for those reviews.
Check the reviewer’s history
It isn’t practical to review each reviewer’s profile to see if they are a fake reviewer. However, if a specific review is really standing out and directly affecting your decision making, then it’s worth checking out the reviewer’s history
Below are some common things you need to look for in reviewer profiles to confirm if they are fake reviewers or not:
- – The reviewer consistently reviews products, like more than 5 products a week.
- – The reviewer always gives a 5-star or 1-star rating.
- – Similar length of every review.
- – Use a generic tone in every review instead of going into technicalities.
If multiple of the above hints are in the reviewer profile, then it probably means they give fake reviews, and you should not trust their review.
Use fake reviews detector website
Many websites can scan reviews of a particular Amazon product using their own algorithm to detect fake reviews and offer more information about the reviews. These services aren’t 100% correct every time, but they can give you a good idea of what you are dealing with before investigating a product for fake reviews, examples are Fakespot and thereviewindex.
