A new study has found that fake reviews continue to be an issue for websites, but two-thirds of shoppers are aware that the reviews they read may not be true.
Uberall's "The State of Online Review Fraud" analyzed 4 million reviews of various businesses on Google, Facebook, Yelp and Tripadvisor.
Among its findings was that about 70% of consumers check out the reviews on Google, where 10.7% of the reviews are fakes. So are 7.1% of the reviews in Yelp and 5.2% of those on Tripadvisor.
Those numbers actually are better than in previous years, as all three sites have tried to improve the quality of their reviews. Google removed 130 million fake reviews in 2019 and 2020, said Uberall.
Uberall suggested four steps websites can take to reduce fraud:
• Use available machine learning and AI tools, together with aggressive enforcement.
• Embrace an approach that makes it structurally harder to cheat.
• Make it easy for businesses and consumers to flag suspect reviews.
• Consider verification systems that minimize the likelihood that the actual customer is writing reviews (e.g., verified purchaser).