How To Spot Fake Reviews Online?

Date First Published: 16th June 2023

Topic: Cybersecurity

Subtopic: Threats To Systems, Data & Information

Article Type: Computer Questions & Answers

Difficulty Level: 3/10

Learn about how to spot fake reviews online in this article.

Online reviews are a useful way of seeing what other people think of a product or service before signing up for a subscription or making a purchase. When wondering whether a website is legitimate or a scam, whether a product is good quality, or whether a seller is trustworthy, you may look at reviews. However, this has also led to fake reviews that are harmful to other users and can easily make people believe things that are not true, which can lead to poor decisions.

Fake reviews misrepresent an experience of using a product or service and are designed to deceive other people. Even though large and well-known review sites, like Trustpilot and TripAdvisor have been taking action against fake reviews, they cannot detect every possible fake review and there still might be some fake reviews. Unless you know the reviewer, there is no single way to be 100% sure that a review is fake, but there are some signs that indicate that reviews are fake or at least a little misleading. Below are 10 ways to spot fake reviews online.

1. Consider Whether The Reviews Are Vague And Do Not Go Into Much Detail

This is the first thing that you should consider when deciding whether to trust a review. Fake reviews are often vague and don't go into much detail. They may only say something like 'Good product', 'Cool', 'Amazing', 'Worst product', or 'Do not buy' with no reasons at all, which is unhelpful for other people. If you see vague reviews that only contain a few words and do not explain why they thought the product or service was good or bad, that is an immediate sign that the reviews are fake. It could be that the reviewers have never actually used the product or service and just wrote the reviews to manipulate the average rating.

2. Consider Whether The Reviews Look Too Good Or Bad To Be True

If the reviews seem to sound unrealistic (e.g. they seem to be completely flawless or they seem to be completely negative), or their experience of the product or service sounds too good or bad to be true, there is a much higher chance that the review is fake. If the review sounds too good to be true, it could be that the review was written by a marketer to boost their sales. Reviews that are completely negative could be written by a competitor to try and spite the seller.

Also, look for extreme positives or negatives, like 'Best product ever' or 'Worst product ever'. Most people will not categorise something as the best or the worst and will write about some positive and negative things. If a review looks suspicious, then it probably is.

If there are hundreds or thousands of reviews on the page, consider whether there is a mix of positive and negative reviews. If all the reviews seem to be five stars with absolutely no negatives, it is more likely that they do not represent a genuine experience and you should be wary of any review page that looks like that and carefully consider whether the company can get it right every single time. It could be that a group of people have been asked to write a five-star review in exchange for something else.

3. Look At Whether The Reviews Are Posted Within A Very Short Time Span

If hundreds or thousands of reviews are all posted within a very short time span, like all on the same day or within a few hours, the reviews are much more likely to be fake. It could be that the company has paid for the reviews instead of allowing them to grow naturally, that they have emailed hundreds or thousands of people at once to review them in exchange for a benefit, or have used an automated bot or script to generate reviews. Most reviews will have a date and time next to the reviewer's display name, so you should be able to see when they have been posted.

4. Check For Spelling, Grammatical Errors, and Awkward Phrasing

Take a look at the spelling and grammar of the reviews. If you notice lots of spelling and grammatical errors on the reviews or awkward phrasing, the reviews are more likely to be fake. This is because lots of mistakes suggest that the reviews have been rushed by other people without properly proofreading them.

Also, look for overly formal language or complex wording (e.g. whoever made this product is putatively meritorious, but the product was still ephemeral.). This is a sign that someone was paid to make the review sound as good as possible. A genuine review will sound clear, without sounding overly formal or rushed with lots of mistakes.

5. Look For A 'Verified Purchase' Tag On The Review

Most sites, including Amazon will say whether the reviewer has actually purchased the product or service. When a review comes from a buyer, it is much more likely to be trustworthy. Some may not allow people to write reviews if they haven't purchased it. If it doesn't have this tag or says something like 'unverified purchase', then there is no guarantee that they have actually bought it. However, fake reviews can still use this tag, so don't rely on this tag itself to determine whether a review is trustworthy.

6. Look At The Reviewer's Profile

Review sites often contain a link to the reviewer's profile which can be accessed by clicking on their display name. This will display all of their reviews and additional information about them, like the date they joined. If all of their reviews look too good or bad to be true, they have very few reviews, or they are all absolutely positive or negative, this is a sign that the reviews they are writing are false or misleading. This is useful when checking individual reviews coming from one user.

7. Check For Unrelated Product Recommendations

The purpose of reviews is for people to share their experiences of a product or service, not to recommend unrelated products. If the reviews seem to recommend unrelated products that have nothing to do with what they are reviewing, this is a sign that the reviews are fake and coming from a marketer just so that they can boost their sales.

8. Look For Repeated Phrasing And Words

Consider whether the review contains an unnatural repetition of certain words or phrases. For example, does it unnaturally repeat a company's name, a sentence, or a paragraph of text, or use certain words that appear way too many times in such a small amount of text? (e.g. This grey shoe rack was the best. This company sells so many grey shoe racks. These grey shoe racks can be found in all sorts of sizes. If you want to find any grey shoe racks, I strongly recommend that you buy grey shoe racks from this company). It could be that they are repeating words or phrases to try to get them to rank higher on Google for other people to see them (keyword stuffing).

9. Look For Images And Videos

Genuine reviews are more likely to contain real images and videos of the product. Not all review sites support images and videos, but these make reviews stand out and are an immediate sign that the review is more trustworthy. Original photos and videos prove that the experience was genuine.

10. Check Whether The Reviews Are Copied From Elsewhere

Fake reviews sometimes use text that is copied word-for-word from elsewhere so that they can be written and posted as quickly as possible without having to manually write a different one each time. Consider whether the same review appears elsewhere or whether the text appears on another website. To do this, copy and paste the text into Google and see any matches or use a plagiarism detection tool. If it is copied and pasted, that is an immediate sign of a fake review.

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