Review websites.
Where do I start with these things…….
First, let’s talk about what review websites SHOULD be. Review websites should be places where people can look up a company or person and read a well researched factual review. Reviews are fine as long as they are accurate. Ideally, these websites should be public about who they are and what they do. If they are going to have cajones to judge others, they should at least have the guts to not hide behind a privacy domain.
Ultimately, there ends up being four different types of review sites:
1) The Fake Review Site
2) The Hater
3) The Real Review Site
4) The Anger Podium
Each one of these different types review sites has a different end goal in mind. Let’s address them one by one.
1) The Fake Review Site: These sites are the most common. The average consumer has no idea that they are fake. The reason I say they are fake is because their reviews are rarely real. Most of these fake review sites are designed to capitalize on another site’s traffic. These fake review sites see that a certain product or company is hot and people are searching for it. An example might be “The Snuggy”. Remember that blanket with arms? It was hot for a while and people wanted to know more about it so they searched google for “Snuggy Reviews” or something like that. These fake review sites pop up on Google within days and they usually bash the heck out of the product and then offer some other type of product that is “better”. Some of them give a positive review but they are few and far between. Either way, they are only up to siphon traffic away from the core product and sell something else.
The Anger Podium: These are the big negative review sites that dominate the results when you specifically search for something neative about a company. How they work is simple; when people are mad and they do a search to see if other people are mad they find these sites and vent their anger. These sites can certainly help people avoid a bad product but they tend to do more harm than good.. The issues I have with these websites are:
1) They don’t do any research to see if the negative posts are true. They simply provide an open forum for people to vent.
2) The names of the sites themselves are usually very defammatory. As a result, the product or person can lose business just by showing up as part of that site in a Google search. Even if the reveiw itself is not damaging. The searcher may not even open the site they might just SEE the listing and assume that product or person is bad because the site name is something negative.Thee sites have names with words in them like scam and rip-off. It ends up being guilt by association.
3) By far the most disgusting thing these sites do is make sure they show up in the Google rankings (organic SEO) of a company, name, or product and their listing will say:
“Has XYZ done you wrong? Post your negative experience about them here.”
This is so slimy it’s unbelievable. The are actually enticing people to slam the company or product. In addition that, they are giving an open invitiation to that person’s competitors to take a free shot at them. It then becomes a viscious cycle of competitors bashing each other and no one wins because the reveiws never go away! That’s right. NEVER. These sites hide behind free speach so, even if the comments are totally false, they don’t have to remove them.
These sites will eventually get destroyed because they are profiting from trademark infringment and defamation. You can say crappy things about people all day long and for the most part you can’t be stopped as long as you don’t profit from it. These sites make huge amounts of money buy selling banner ads etc and you can’t make money of of other people trademarks. There are some huge cases brewing against these sites.
The Hater: These sites are the strangest. Most of them don’t even sell anything. They just hate for the sake of hating. They just LOVE to hate. It took
me a long time to try and figure out the agenda of these sites and the conclusion I have come to is this:
They are using their platform to build themselves up to some type of hero status. It’s a fame thing. It’s an “I wish I was cooler in high school thing.”
The funny part is, it’s really hard to take them seriously. Think about it….if you NEVER like anything, how can your negative opinion/review be taken seriously? In addition to that, some of the people they go after are downright comedic. When I see someone bashing someone who I know does amazing things for humanity, I really can’t take any of their opinions seriously anymore.
But hey….freedom of speech is important…..so we have to let these people keep on hating.
The Real Review Site: These are pretty few and far between which surprises me because, when done right, they become the “go to” source. When you are the “go to” source you get a ton of traffic and you can make a ton of money. These review sites do impartial reviews and usually compare products with their competitors on a bunch of different levels. Think of a car review site. Real review sites compare apples to apples.
For example: two compact cars in the same price range.
They compare horse power, fuel consumption, safety etc
Based on the comparison of strengths and weaknesses they come out with a winner.
These types of review sites are awesome. They save people a ton of money and provide real value to the world. The save us time and frustration. In my opinion, they are the only type of review websites you should bother with. Unfortunately, it can be hard sometimes to know if you are on a real one or not!
I hope this article gives you a little more insight on the, often sleezy, world of review sites. Now you can use your new found knowledge to track down the good ones!
Sincerely,
