Are any Reviews real anymore?

I used to work for a fairly popular web hosting company in Canada which will remain nameless, but I can confirm most hosting reviews at least are fake, bought and paid for.

We owned and ran one of the largest hosting review sites on the net, under different registrations and payment sources of course. Our hosting service was always #1, with the other spots, 2-20 being rented by other hosts for periods of time.

I would recommend trusting no review except for ones that come from word of mouth. These days it's all bought and sold.

originally posted by: NerdGoddess
It's very frustrating the ammount of fake information on the internet these days. Something I've gone by that hasn't really let me down yet is on Amazon, I can click a reviewers name and see their profile. So if someone writes a make or break review in my opinion, I click their profile and see what other reviews they have done and try to judge their honesty based on what I see.

-Alee

Before the internet it was just as bad in print media. We used to advertise to people to drink radioactive water because the radiation would give them energy.

While I would stop short of calling them fake (many offer legitimate information) most any review board has sponsored content. Consumer reports, Amazon reviews, Newegg reviews, top 10/40 music channels, and more. They do it because people are very bad at distinguishing real information from false.

The best advice I have is to ignore any 1/5 star review and read the 4 stars for legitimate feedback. They come across to me as being more truthful, or maybe I'm just another victim to information warfare and that's my compromised "trusted" source.

originally posted by: six67seven
I don't know about establishment reviews, but I swear it seems like 90% of products out there, whether it be at Amazon, Walmart or Home Depot, has 4 stars.

That said, I see plenty of negative reviews of products. In my opinion, those are the only ones worth reading to get the best sense of what you might be getting into.

Here's a problem with reviews, people who keep an item are satisified with it, very few are conisseurs of that item. They can rate something highly but can be (and usually are) completely ignorant of the competition. So, even assuming they're being entirely truthful, how can you assume they even have the proper experience to distinguish between a below average, average, and above average product?

If you want an honest review go to YouTube and read the comment section for your product l. 9/10 you’ll get honest reviews besides fanboys.

I take reviews with a grain of salt, especially if the review is posted from a retailer site. I look for reviews from forums and such. Mostly I'm looking at audio gear reviews..keeping in mind that a lot of it is subjective.

originally posted by: watchitburn
I wrote a review for a canine cryo bank about 10 years ago talking about how great their frozen yogurt was.

It's still there, I saw it a few months ago.

I know it's only April, but can we stop down and marvel at the hands down most outstanding reply of the year for 2018? Just sit back and allow yourselves to bathe in its genius for a moment, and laugh a little.