I have read that trip advisor may not be reliable as many hotels have caught on that they can give themselves good ratings and reviews by logging on the site under various usernames.

I find the site very usefull and provides a lot of good reliable info.
While some of what you say may be going on I don't think its a big problem.

I would first check out the history of the reviewers before making my decision. If the person has given numerous reviews over a period of time then they should be considered as "genuine". I would be suspicious of 1st time reviewers!

I think TA is fairly good at policing itself for fake posts. I have found the site fairly reliable in terms of recommendations and post hotel reviews there myself.

Recently I went on a trip to Washington DC. From TA, I picked an excellent hotel and in reading some of the reviews found a great place nearby for breakfast as well as a good place for dinner on our first night.

Well, there may be something in what you say. It's amazing what a range of opinions you can get for a particular place.

I put it down to people's unrealisic expectations of the cheaper places. If that's what you're after then the bottom line is you must take your own decisions. And if not good - well, but it down to experience.

The alternative is just to busk it - find somewhere to stay when you arrive. If you are not willing to do that, then I guess you'll just have to live with the possibility that some reviews may not be legit.

You really can't have it both ways - either you book on the basis of strangers' opinions or you do your own thing. Of rugbthiwn y ryougdrdjher eoth\\

I also think TA is a very good place for research. Yet, it must be taken with a large grain of salt. One time only posters are suspect, in my mind, almost always. One good indicator I've found is to look for the poster's history and see where else they have stayed and their comments in that posting. Some posters are uniformly negative, or the reverse, rave about everywhere. Also, once you get about a half dozen reviews or more, you hope to be able to sift through the info and get an accurate read. And, one of TA's best features I've found is the traveler photos. As they say, "they speak a thousand words......"

I also always take the trip advisor reviews with a large serving of salt. Something I've seen a number of times is that someone who had a negative experience somewhere will "clone" their review and post under several different names.

I suppose if I spent as much time on Tripadvisor as I do here, I might feel like I had more a sense of how to interpret posts there. For me, one of the great advantages of Fodors is that I feel like I know the regular posters here and can judge whether their tastes and mine might or might not match on a particular place.

For the first time this spring I relied on tripadvisor rather than guide books when deciding where to stay (S. Italy and Sicily). I was looking for budget and mid-range places, and tended to discount reviews that suggested the poster had unrealistic expectations. Where possible I cross-referenced with venere.com.

In general I was pleased with the results - I wouldn't stay at the B&B in Naples again, but it was acceptable, on the other hand, the B&Bs in Siracusa and Palermo were "finds". I did make sure to reciprocate by posting reviews when I got back.

I've found it to be pretty reliable, but it is good to read through the various posts and be able to "read between the lines." As others have said, it can be useful to check the reviewer's other posts (click on the name) and be more suspicious of first-time reviewers, although their posts could also be valid. Finally, you can often detect a trend when a property has A LOT of posts.

Also check the dates of stay for the review (seasonality issues,) whether problems may have been resolved (e.g. renovations,) whether the praise or pans are valid for your needs, and whether a complaint is reasonable. I once read a complaint where a person complained a lot about the poor quality of service, but this included some picky things (felt short-changed in toiletries) to representing a liability for the hotel (the desk clerk referred her to the hotel's gift shop to buy aspirin, when she complained of a headache and asked the desk to supply her aspirin for free. A hotel does not want the responsibility of possibly providing an improper medication.)

Like any information source, you have to be a good evaluator of the reviews themselves.

TA reviews, in my experience, are more reliable for the reviewer's own country where the reviewer probably has a broader base of comparison. Usually, they're more useful for North America, for instance. Complaints about check-in times for a ryokan reveal unrealistic expectations and lack of understanding. But some reviews have pointed me towards a genuine find--e.g., last summer in Paris--and led to me changing a reservation. But, yes, a grain of salt is well taken.

I read trip advisor b4 every hotel i book..So far i have been pleased...however, as this is people's opinion's and sometimes we have different opinion's...so on occasion i have read a bad review on a hotel and loved it...But all in all i think it is a great way to find out about a hotel before u book it..

1. I had to go on a business trip to Vegas - a place I would otherwise never visit. Booked a hotel, then thought I should have read TA - did so - most reviews were awful & I felt I made an error. Then I read reviews of other hotels & they were equally awful - as a previous poster said - unrealistic expectations. But the hotel I chose was just fine. 2. I do think the reviews are often heavily salted by the hotels themselves. There is a new so-called 5 star hotel in Toronto (not rated - hotel just decided to rate itself at 5 stars) which got a lot of bad reviews, & then presto, suddenly there are a whole bunch of really leaden, odd good reviews which sound like adv. scripts. I have no doubt they were developed by the hotel itself to counter so many bad reviews.

I use Trip Advisor to read hotel reviews and sometimes post questions. I find many people give low ratings on hotels because a place didn't have internet connection or something else that wouldn't bother me, so I do weed through the garbage and read in between the lines. I'll usually go with a review that has positive comments on the quality of the room, service, and location.

Monica

i read some trip advisor reports, but i discount many of them as people don't seem to want to just offer info....they either have nothing but praise or they have an axe to grind....it is one more piece of info of many that i use for making decisions...

i must say that the fodors info is more personal usually and more reliable....that is why i try to spend as much time here....besides no one would listen to panda bashing on TA or the other sites

I find both Fodors and Trip Advisor to be very helpful in planning a trip. Fodors for the input from the regulars who have been just about everywhere (except the Philippines for reasons unknown to me) and Trip Advisor for more info and pictures about the hotels and location. For Trip Advisor reviews I often email the reviewer and ask more detailed questions.

On TA, to get a clear picture, in addition to the hotel reviews, you also need to go onto the country & area forums and see what has been discussed about the hotel you have in mind. You can also create a new post if you dont find what youre looking for. As on Fodors, you always need to check other posts made by people giving advice. TA has a great system of compiling all posts made each person listed on his/her profile. You immediately get to know who is real and who is a fake.

In general I think the TA reviews are valuable, especially for the hotels which have 50+ reviews over a few years.
However, I just posted a review there for a hotel in Las Vegas we stayed in last weekend. We thought the hotel was horrible and I was shocked to find mostly glowing reviews on TA. Sometimes that happens.

I'm not sure if this is common knowledge but TA is cranked by Expedia. Would Expedia allow bad reviews of hotels and tours to appear in TA, the very companies that bring income to Expedia? Hmmmm ...

Also, especially for Asian branches, I notice some TA regulars' replies are so prompt and frequent one wonders if they are "planted" to promote certain destinations and hotels; as if they live in the same time zone and eyeballing the forums on 24/7 basis. Don't they ever sleep or go to work? Hmmmm ... (again)

Yes, a "large serving of salt" is necessary when taking advice from TA.

"Would Expedia allow bad reviews of hotels and tours to appear in TA, the very companies that bring income to Expedia?" - they certainly seem to. I wrote a scathing review of one of the hotels on my last trip (“Terrible room, avoid this hotel like the plague!”), and it hasn't been censored in any way.

Me too - all my poor reviews are still up there. I think some people lurk the boards at work - so that is why their responses are so prompt!

TA is good - in respect of Thailand at least - on the beaches.

As to OP's original Qu - I think hotels do sometimes write their own reviews. You can sometimes tell that is the case if there are a series of reviews where the syntax is similar.