A
review site is a
websiteA website is a collection of related web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that are addressed with a common domain name or IP address in an Internet Protocol-based network...
on which reviews can be posted about people, businesses, products, or services. These sites may use
Web 2.0The term "Web 2.0" is commonly associated with web applications which facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-based communities, hosted services, web applications, social-networking...
techniques to gather reviews from site users or may employ professional writers to author reviews on the topic of concern for the site. Early review sites included Epinions.com and
Amazon.comAmazon.com, Inc. is an American-based multinational electronic commerce company. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, it is America's largest online retailer, with nearly three times the Internet sales revenue of the runner up, Staples, Inc....
.
Review sites are generally supported by advertising, and in most cases, comparison shopping or "price" comparison.
A
review site is a
websiteA website is a collection of related web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that are addressed with a common domain name or IP address in an Internet Protocol-based network...
on which reviews can be posted about people, businesses, products, or services. These sites may use
Web 2.0The term "Web 2.0" is commonly associated with web applications which facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-based communities, hosted services, web applications, social-networking...
techniques to gather reviews from site users or may employ professional writers to author reviews on the topic of concern for the site. Early review sites included Epinions.com and
Amazon.comAmazon.com, Inc. is an American-based multinational electronic commerce company. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, it is America's largest online retailer, with nearly three times the Internet sales revenue of the runner up, Staples, Inc....
.
Business models
Review sites are generally supported by advertising, and in most cases, comparison shopping or "price" comparison. Some business review sites may also allow businesses to pay for enhanced listings, which do not affect reviews and ratings on the site. Product review sites may be supported by providing paid links directly to websites that sell the items being reviewed.
With the growing popularity of
affiliateIn the broadcasting industry , a network affiliate is a local broadcaster which carries some or all of the programme line-up of a television or radio network, but is owned by a company other than the owner of the network...
programs on the
InternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standardized Internet Protocol Suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, a new sort of review sites emerged - the so called affiliate product review sites. Most often these websites review only one product or compare a couple of products from the same niche. The writer of the review is affiliated with the owner of the product, which means that each time someone buys this product, affiliate gets a commission. This leads many people to question the value of affiliate reviews. In turn, they seek other opinions of the product on forums or on larger user review sites.
Impact
Studies by independent research groups like
Forrester ResearchForrester Research is an independent technology and market research company that provides its clients with advice about technology's impact on business and consumers. Forrester Research has four research centers in the US: Cambridge, Massachusetts; Foster City, California; Washington, D.C.; and...
,
comScorecomScore is an internet marketing research company providing marketing data and services to many of the Internet's largest businesses. comScore tracks all internet data on its surveyed computers in order to study online behavior.-Company history:...
, The Kelsey Group, and the
Word of Mouth Marketing Association show that rating and review sites influence consumer shopping behavior. In 2007 even large companies such as
Best BuyBest Buy Co., Inc. is a specialty retailer of consumer electronics in the United States accounting for 19% of the market. It also operates in Canada, Mexico, and China. The company's subsidiaries include Geek Squad, Magnolia Audio Video, Pacific Sales, and, in Canada operates under both the Best...
and Walmart began to mention online reviews in television advertisements and on the back of receipts.
Anonymity
Originally reviews were generally anonymous, and most review sites have policies that preclude the release of any identifying information without a court order.
Review sites act as public forums, and are legally protected from liability for the content by
Section 230 of the Communications Decency ActSection 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 is a landmark piece of Internet legislation in the United States, codified at...
(CDA).
According to Kurt Opsahl, a staff attorney for the
Electronic Frontier FoundationThe Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit advocacy and legal organization based in the United States with the stated purpose of being dedicated to preserving the right to freedom of speech, such as protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, in the...
(EFF), anonymity of reviewers is important. "You couldn't have services like ratings sites or
CraigslistCraigslist is a centralized network of online communities, featuring free online classified advertisements – with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums.-Description:...
or message boards or
Amazon.comAmazon.com, Inc. is an American-based multinational electronic commerce company. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, it is America's largest online retailer, with nearly three times the Internet sales revenue of the runner up, Staples, Inc....
's user feedback or
eBayeBay Inc. is an American Internet company that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide. A majority of the sales take place through a set-time auction format, but subsequent methods include...
's reviews of sellers without it."
Beginning approximately 2005, however, consumers became more open with their identity and personal information on review sites. Some sites like those from Yelp, Inc. encourage consumers to use their real names, real photos and personal tags.
Criticism
Most review sites make little or no attempt to restrict postings, or to verify the information in the reviews. Critics point out that positive reviews are sometimes written by the businesses or individuals being reviewed, while negative reviews may be written by competitors, disgruntled employees, or anyone with a grudge against the business being reviewed. Furthermore, studies of research methodology have shown that in forums where people are able to post opinions publicly, group polarization often occurs, and the result is very positive comments, very negative comments, and little in between, meaning that those who would have been in the middle are either silent or pulled to one extreme or the other."
Another criticism against sites that rely on income from businesses is that they are reluctant to post negative reviews since that undermines their business model. This leads to a conflict of interest.
Response to criticism
Operators of most review sites acknowledge that reviews may not be objective, and that ratings may not be statistically valid. A
FAQFrequently asked questions, or FAQs are listed questions and answers, all supposed to be frequently asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular topic. Since the acronym FAQ originated in textual media, its pronunciation varies; "fack," "fax," "facts," and "F.A.Q." are commonly heard...
on the Ratingz Inc websites states that, although the ratings are not statistically valid, “They are a listing of opinions and should be judged as such. However, we often receive emails stating that the ratings are uncannily accurate, especially for businesses with over 100 ratings.
Bob Nicholson, a co-founder of Ratingz Inc, goes on to state that “If you get useful information from the ratings, great. That's what we hope happens. If you look at a rating and say, `Boy, these were obviously all written by the staff in this guy's office,' then take it for what it's worth.”
PersonRatings.comPersonRatings.com is a website where users can rate and review people. The site allows users to read about and rate others on a range of qualities, including sexiness, smarts, trustworthiness and humor. The site purports to be a "Yelp about people" . Anyone is free to log on and contribute their...
founder
Jeremy StamperJeremy Stamper is an American internet entrepreneur.Stamper has founded several internet companies, including PersonRatings.com .-Progressive Homesellers:...
echoes this sentiment, advising site users to "take a person ratings profile with a grain of salt"
In effort to resolve the issue of biased reviews written by the party itself being reviewed, the Power Reviews Verified Buyer solution verifies whether the person writing the review has actually purchased the product.
Professional review sites
Aside from sites that enable users to post reviews of products and services, there are also those that work on a "professional" or "expert" basis, commissioning, and paying for, named individuals or bodies with expertise in a particular field to provide their review material. By endeavouring to maintain independence and objectivity and allowing their writers' credentials and site ethos to be scrutinised, such sites avoid many of the criticisms mentioned above that the user-review sites are open to. For example, in the UK the consumer advocacy organisation, the Consumers' Association offers
Which?, a site that carries no advertising but covers all manner of products and services, with reviews and ratings often based on exhaustive independent testing.
See also
- Employer review website
- Rating sites
- Reputation management
Reputation management is the process of tracking an entity's actions and other entities' opinions about those actions; reporting on those actions and opinions; and reacting to that report creating a feedback loop. All entities involved are generally people, but that need not always be the case....
- Reputation system
A reputation system is a type of collaborative filtering algorithm which attempts to determine ratings for a collection of entities, given a collection of opinions that those entities hold about each other....
- Trust metric
In psychology and sociology, a trust metric is a measurement of the degree to which a members of a group is trusted by each other. Trust metrics may be abstracted in a manner that can be implemented on computers, making them of interest for the study and engineering of virtual communities, such...
- Star (classification)
Stars are often used as symbols for classification purposes. They are used by reviewers for ranking things such as movies, TV shows, restaurants, and hotels...
External links
- Review Websites at the Open Directory Project
The Open Directory Project , also known as Dmoz , is a multilingual open content directory of World Wide Web links owned by Netscape that is constructed and maintained by a community of volunteer editors.ODP uses a hierarchical ontology scheme for organizing site listings...