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Should You Trust Website Customer Reviews?
crevette asks: "I was looking on Amazon for some gizmo when I got a review from G. Cooke, TX, who is in the top 10 reviewers. Out of curiosity, I checked her reviews... She has 658 reviews, many on the same day, which include everything from knife sets to a plastic duck! She reviews many books on the same day... She must be spending hundreds of dollars on useless stuff every month. Worst of all, most of her reviews are 5 stars. Do you think those people are paid by Amazon or some company? Do you trust them? If not (like I tend to think) what can we do about it?"
go to Google's new beta product search to find cheap reviewers!
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Almost true. Amazon's reviews are approved by Amazon before they appear. Of course, it appears that there's quite a low threshold for approval.
Besides Amazon, be wary of other sites that host reviews, you never know when there might be essentially bribes moving behind the scenes. I don't even trust epinions: even though they do not sell things themselves, the stores they link to could be giving them financial incentives to raise the scores of products they sell.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Might explain why she reads so much....
Name: G. Cooke
Nickname: pagebypage
E-mail: grospoin@aol.com
Reviewer Rank: 8
About me: So many good books, so many wonderful things....so few hours. For me, reading and trying is sheer pleasure, a boon companion, and sometimes work as reviewing is my profession. I hold membership in the National Book Critics Circle, and write for newspapers across the U.S. Thanks to all who have expressed an interest in my reviews, and thanks to Amazon for providing a forum in which we can exchange ideas.
This person's writing style is descriptive and consise. Far too good for a "normal" user.
This says to me: Someone is being paid to write good reviews for any product out there. A mini-Marketing agent if you will.
It's somewhat reminiscent of the Microsoft PR agent who "switched from Mac to Windows", or it's like the "grassroots pro-Microsoft" campaign that Bill sponsored in the opening days of the Anti-Trust court proceedings.
Trying to appear unsolicited and innocent, but in reality, it's just someone's job.
Money is the root of *most* work.
Before any good/useful course of action can be taken, there are several steps to take:
1) Determine if there is some 'shady' reviewing going on (although this looks like a pretty solid set of circumstancial evidence).
2) Find out who's responsible for it.
If it is amazon, itself, that is doing this sort of thing, then the only actions that can be taken are public outcry, and possibly an e-mail campaign. After all, they may be using it to drum up business, and as we have all learned from spammers: if it works, they'll keep on doing it.
On the other hand, if it is some third party submitting reviews, it might be possible to get Amazon to remove all reviews by said person...
Just a thought
hmmmm?
The reviews may be filtered for content, but this wouldn't necessarily stop someone from writing an uninformed review and getting it posted.
Forget the star/number/etc. rating and read the reviews. People that have actually used a product will have real comments about the good, bad, and ugly of it. Ignor reviewers that say "Wonder product! I am completely satisfied." or "Waist of money!". They don't tell you anything. Stuff like "The battery door broke after a few days, but the company Fed-Ex'ed me a new one.", or "Works great with Bob's widget.12.tgz drivers!.", give you actual information about what happened when they used the product. Judge for yourself how many stars they're worth.
A google search turns up several reviews with the Dallas Morning News and the Denton Record-Chronicle. I guess she submits to amazon what her papers won't publish.
bun-fhuinneog agam!
From the beginning Epinions.com thought, "That would be great/cheap content to just have people post their opinions about products, but why would you trust random people?" So they baked in a rather complex "web of trust" into their website from Day 1.
If you see someone whose reviews reflect your own opinions, you can add them to your list of trusted people. Then when you see a list of reviews, your trusted people's reviews are at the top. Furthermore, your trusted people also have people they trust and you are likely to turst those people too, just maybe not quite as much. So your trusted people's trusted people's reviews bubble up near to the top, and so on.
Also, if you see some reviewer who you think is way off base, you can block them and never see their reviews again. It's a clever scheme, and if you use the site enough, you can tailor it to serve you decent reviews quickly. And it's all based on your opinion of other people's opinions, unlike Amazon which just bubbles up reviews from people who write a lot of reviews. I think quantity of reviews is hardly a good metric to use.
I know I have seen one review from the #1 reveiwer -- Harriet Klausner -- and it was awful. It's for the book The Scar by China Mieville, and it's terrible. I think she read the back cover, the first few pages, and a few other reviews to make her own review. She ends the review with this sentence: "Award winning China Mieville (see Perdido Street Station) is bound to more than just receive nominations; she is going to win many trophies for this strong story."
...
As most of you know, China Mieville is NOT A SHE. Anyone who actually had the book couldn't miss this fact, since there is a big picture of him on the back flap.
They do have some moderation, though. When I first saw the review it was one of the featured reviews on the main book page, but now that 12 people have said it was "unhelpful" it has fallen to the third page.
Anyway, that should tell you something about how good the top reviewers are
-- Hobbits suck!
Yeah, I guess it was a poorly worded question on his part. Still, people need to use common sense when they read these things. I do use online reviews to make buying decisions, and I've found that the quality of the reviews depends a lot on what you're trying to purchase.
For instance, technical books tend to have good reviews on Amazon. This is probably because it's more difficult for a marketer to fake that stuff. I've also used reviews on others sites before buying a lawn mower, snow thrower, and a computer parts supplier. I had to dig through more noise, but the results have all been positive.
Probably the worst reviews that I've found have been for video games. It's nothing but blind fans, posting mindless garbage about how much this game rules.
What I usually do is look for trends in the negative reviews. If there is a common theme emerging, then I might stay away from that product or company. The same can be said for the reviews that people get on Ebay. If someone has a few negatives, and they all say that he didn't ship on time, there might be a problem there.
A reviewer who takes the time to use proper grammar and explains his thoughts logically will obviously carry more weight.
Again, it's just common sense, with a little luck thrown in.
I ordered a book from an Amazon "zShop".. these zShops.. aka 3rd party sellers... are rated by customers and given comments. Well, I ordered a used book and apparently somewhere in the text description was "This book is not the one listed!" and it mentioned a different title. I just saw the picture which was the book I wanted, saw the condition as "Like new".. and ordered it. To cut to the chase, after I got the wrong book, I demanded they refund shipping as well as the price of the book. They refused. I gave them a horrible review on Amazon. Amazon only shows the 10 most recent reviews on the individual "zShop page" unless you "click for more reviews"... Mind you, for this particular zShop.. lastpagebooks specifically, the last review on them was quite some time ago. The next day, I see my review is suddenly #30 or so, with a bunch of one line "This store is great! A++++++++!" comments, 5 stars for each. And my comment is suddenly lost in obscurity. Apparently Amazon has no problem with this, or at the very least, no solution.
She gives five stars to _another_ men's electric razor on November 26.
She gives five stars to an iron on October 1.
She gives five stars to _another_ iron on November 23.
She gives five stars to a cordless vaccuum on August 11.
She gives five stars to _another_ cordless vaccuum on September 7.
She gives five stars to a regular vaccuum on August 6.
She gives five stars to _another_ regular vaccuum on October 13.
Come to your own conclusions. My feeling is that she is either:
A: a professional product reviewer, in which case Amazon should include a disclaimer that she is being paid for her reviews,
B: a compulsive liar / attention-seeker,
C: a collection of reviewers all publishing under one pseudonym, in which case Amazon should include a disclaimer that she is not a real person.
D: the marketing department for Amazon / Target, in which case Amazon should include a disclaimer that she is being paid and is not a real person.
You can also click "About G. Cooke" and learn that she is a professional reviewer who is a member of National Book Critics Circle and writes for various newspapers as well. It's not that surprising that she would publish a lot of reviews.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Google Viewer - View search results as scrolling web page images
Google Webquotes - View search results with quotes about them from other sites
Check it out at Google Labs
It's very odd what gets approved and what doesn't.
A kid writes a review along the lines of "This game is awesome you must buy it now!" for a game that won't be released for another month gets posted.
Write an in-depth review of Super Monkey Ball 2, comparing it to the first one, and then saying it's not nearly as good, however, and get your review deleted. Apparently saying negative things about a potentially big title, and say them clearly and justify them, and get your review squashed because it might cost them money.
(And, yes, I have a number of reviews posted already, and I know the guidelines, so it wasn't violating them that kept the review from being posted)
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
And I know for *sure* that at least one of the reviews wasn't legit. It came out too quickly after the initial release and at that point in time the only people who had the book in hand were publishers and tech reviewers. And it was written in fluent marketroid. Draw your own conclusions.
As a rule of thumb, I visit third-party sites for product reviews. These sites do have links to the given products and earn a little on comissions, but in general strive to provide an objective and balanced service.
Yes, reviewers are paid to give rave reviews, just like search engines are paid to increase web page rankings.
Once, after I gave a rave review, I got an email several months later from John Wiley & Sons, offering me $50 to review a similar book of theirs. (This was back when Amazon.com put email addresses next to reviewers' names.)
I don't remember if the paid review was to be submitted to a bookseller's site, or to more conventional book review media.