“Reviews condition people. At the end of the day, a lot of human minds are malleable. They can be easily shaped withs strong words.” -Drake
To avoid getting your business scammed, you might want to be on the lookout for fake reviews. Sadly, there are fake reviews out in the digital world and can truly bring down a business. Fortunately, there are easy ways to spot fake reviews right off the back and ways to manage them. It’s important to always monitor your reviews so you can prevent fake reviews from popping up under your brand’s name. Your brand doesn’t deserve to be unworthy just because of fake reviews.
How to Pick Out Fake Reviews
1. Check their language
Usually, authentic reviews are a lot more specific in their voice. Check out their grammar, punctuation, and word choice too. Fake reviews don’t mention specific people, places, or things that have made their “experience” a bad one. Think of how a normal person would talk when giving their opinion. Fake reviewers are typically not great english speakers so be on the lookout for sentences that don’t make sense.
2. Check the length
Fake reviews tend to be short statements or 1-2 sentences that are frequently generalized like “awful place” or “bad experience.” Sloppy short sentences or three word testimonials are huge indicators that a review is fraud.
3. Check the timestamps
Take the time to go through the timeline of fake reviews because occasionally, fake reviews are posted several times at one time. A company who pays for a batch of reviews are often done at one specific time and are uploaded at the same time. Pay attention to timestamps of reviews to flush out counterfeit reviews.
4. Check their profile
If a review is obviously a fake one, check the reviewers profile. Do they have any profile information, social connections, or previous reviews? Most fake reviewer accounts have no authentic history or digital traces of being real because their accounts we made specifically for writing fake reviews.