Even though Yelp turns 20, online reviews proceed to confuse and confuse shoppers

For 20 years, Yelp has given people a platform to share their experiences at businesses from bars to barbershops. According to the corporate, the platform was released during this time 287 million user reviews from over 600,000 firms.

There's a reason why review sites like Yelp are so popular. Nobody desires to spend their hard-earned money on a foul product or spend money on a foul meal. That's why we seek advice from strangers and use various clues to evaluate whether a selected review is authentic and reliable.

But sometimes these clues can lead buyers down the improper path. At other times, The reviews are simply fake.

I’m a linguist Who studies “word of mouth” or what people tell one another about their experiences. Advances in text analytics have allowed researchers like me to discover patterns and draw conclusions from tens of millions of product reviews.

Here are some key takeaways from research I and others in my field have conducted:

Signs of foul play

How are you able to tell if the review you're reading is sincere?

Competition can sometimes force firms to pay their employees to write down positive reviews for his or her products or negative reviews for competitors. Bots may create fake reviews it seems like they were written by people.

The result’s fake reviews have develop into a significant problem The threatens to completely delegitimize online reviews.

For example, a recent study assumes that there are fake reviews Forcing consumers to waste 12 cents for each dollar they spend online.

The reality is that individuals are pretty bad at distinguishing a fake from an actual one. It's essentially a coin toss – studies have shown that shoppers can accurately spot a fake review only half the time.

Researchers have also tried to work out what characterizes a fake review. You suggested that they’re too long or too shortalong with those that Do not use the past tense or a primary person pronoun.

Yelp has long been aware of the issue. The company has developed an algorithm that identifies and filters out “unhelpful” reviews – and This also includes reviews which can be too short.

It's essential to think in regards to the difference between writing a review after trying a product and coming up with something out of thin air.

In a study from 2023My colleagues and I suggested that the fundamental difference lies in whether a selected language is used. For example, an actual review incorporates more concrete words that describe the “what, where, when” of the experience.

On the opposite hand, if someone hasn't stayed on the hotel they're reviewing or hasn't eaten on the restaurant they're writing about, for instance, they're using abstract generalities which have little to do with the experience.

It's the difference between reading in a review: “The room was clean and the beach was nice” and “The room was so clean, we felt like it was new.” A sandy beach was just steps away, like that that we could easily take a shower after our hike. The shimmering sea water also made the view from the window something special.”

Real reviews can still be misleading

Even if all fake reviews are filtered out, do product reviews still assist you to make higher decisions?

As is commonly the case in market research, it depends.

Researchers have been studying this query for years and might point to a wide range of scoring features that may assist you to make a call.

For example, you may assume that if you might have read several reviews a couple of product and so they are just like one another, there may be a consensus in regards to the product. In fact, studies have shown that the similarity of various opinions tends to make readers more confident.

My research shows that similar reviews increase consumer confidence in regards to the product. However, I even have also found that these similar reviews usually tend to be written by consumers who aren’t so sure about their experience with the product. It's likely that they simply repeated what others said of their reviews and used those reviews to write down their very own.

This creates a paradox. Readers of reviews that sound similar will likely be more confident that they’re making the suitable decision, even when the authors of the identical reviews were less certain. At the identical time, differing reviews cause hesitation amongst readers, regardless that the review authors were actually more confident about their experiences.

The text just isn’t the one element that influences the reader. In ongoing researchI've found that the sheer variety of reviews available on a platform can impact the way you perceive each individual review.

So when you read a review and it’s considered one of, say, 1,572 reviews, you think that it’s a more credible review than if the identical review was considered one of, say, 72 reviews.

This could seem illogical, but it may possibly be explained by human tendency View quantity as an indication of quality: If a product has plenty of reviews, it could mean that it’s popular and plenty of people have bought it. A halo effect is created and also you subconsciously imagine that all the pieces in regards to the product – including its reviews – is best.

But overall, despite these and other issues, consumers are still joyful Make higher purchasing decisions with reviews than without them.

It's only a matter of knowing what to look out for.