n888

I agree, totally. I used to wonder why I'd find reviews that feel like they are trying to "sell" me something instead of providing an honest review. It's extremely frustrating and seems to be more and more of an issue (thinking back to the HN thread a month ago - The war to sell you a mattress).

This is an interesting series on fake reviews: http://www.sitesell.com/blog/2017/07/fake-reviews.html

The company became interested in the topic because a competitor was training their affiliates to write fake reviews of the company's product as a bait-and-switch tactic. (They later did a study with methodology that showed their product does a 33X better job at enabling individuals to create high-traffic sites.)

Some of the worst niches, I’ve noticed, are those that have the potential to prey on people due to the nature of needs - health, make money online, pain relief, weight loss. If you can find a fair review when searching on product reviews, it’s pure luck.

I imagine that Google’s AI component of the algorithm should eventually be able to recognize and penalize reviews that actually do the customer a disservice. Until then, some of the suggestions in this thread are excellent.

Hope you find the link useful.