London TA review.
 

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/4...on-tripadvisor

The actual reviews.
http://archive.is/coW0I

Interesting.

Don't people who post reviews on TA "certify" that the review is true or something to that effect? IOW the fake reviewers are lying (we know that) and doing so on purpose (I guess we know that,too) and how does a site actually prevent this from happening?

That's very funny, but not surprising. I take TA lists with a very large pinch of salt. Just look at the top rated restaurants in London now. Pizza place in Aldgate on nr 3?

I do think there are honest people "out there" who leave reviews on TA and I happen to be one of them.

Of course there are, I do all the time and I think most of the reviews are honest on TA. I don't use them for restaurants much anyway. In fact, I hardly ever even look at those, I mainly use the hotel reviews.

Obviously, it would be impossible to know every single fake review, but I imagine they have some kind of computer algorithms to check words or behavior or something to try to weed out most.

I can't stand people like that author, some smug jerk. He actually was writing fake reviews for a living, so is immoral to begin with. And then spends a lot of time on this supposed joke to see what he could do. You would think he could find something useful to do with his time and supposed smarts.

What always kind of surprises me is a lot of places I frequent (Mainly hotels, it seems) ask me to review them on TA. I have never had one try to bribe me or say anything beyond that, but please review them. And I always wonder why they are so sure everyone who stays there is going to write good things about them?

If you follow TA ratings for restaurants in Europe, you will often find places that are frequented by tourists.
The toprated restaurant in Amsterdam 'Martine' is actually someone's private dining room. The only reviews of this place are on Tripadvisor, from visitors.
Locals use 'Iens' for restaurants, not Tripadvisor. Martine is not on there, the 2nd restaurant on Tripadvisor's list is not in the top 50 best restaurants on Iens.

I wouldn't use Tripadvisor for finding restaurants in Europe.

I think it's fairly easy to pick out fake reviews. The "top" lists are useless, as are most survey-based "best" and "worst" lists. How can anyone who's only been to six airports have a valid opinion on the best and the worst?

Just because somebody thinks a hotel or restaurant is "the best in______" does not mean the review is fake. It is simply a measure of the writer's reliability.

And Tulips, your implication that some establishment "frequented by tourists" (and would those "tourists" be from any country or just one?) couldn't possibly be as good as others makes me question your judgement, also.

I do use TripAdvisor for reviews occasionally. More as a “red flag” check than anything else. I get most of my food recs from blogs.

I don’t think many people care about the top ten lists anyway. Even top ten lists in guide books are usually crap or severely out of date. And on the opposite end of things- I also take local’s word with a grain of salt, I mean tourists might eat at a place because it’s good or they might eat there because it’s next to the Louvre. Locals might eat at a place because it’s good or because it’s nostalgic or because there are no tourists there. I rarely recommend my favorite places in town because they aren’t (usually) tourist favorites for an over all experience. Tourists would think the service at my favorite breakfast place is gruff at best.

I think that sometimes a hotel asking guests to review can backfire. I once wrote an extremely blunt assessment of a Hostel because they had reminded me multiple times to review them. And the fact that they did not respond at all angered me further. I wouldn’t stay there again just based on that fact. But usually I think that barring a few genuine complaints and cranks, it actually increases the hotel’s rating. You have to totally screw up for someone to write a really terrible hotel review. And by terrible, I mean something that makes other travelers wince in sympathy. Most people are like- Hotel is clean, they were nice at the front desk, I got exactly what I expected, 4 stars.

Unless it’s a yelp elite, they’re usually just nuts...

Dukey, I only mean that these are not necessarily the places that the locals frequent. I'd rather follow 'iens' than TA, just like I would rather take advice on Amsterdam from Menachem, than from a poster who has visited the city once, or who hasn't visited in years.

I don't doubt that most of the reviews are sincere.

I never (or virtually never) pay attention to TA reviews. Just too easy to be manipulated.

For hotels I do look at the reviews on sites like booking.com etc. because only people who have actually stayed there can submit reviews.

Restaurants can be more difficult -- and I often think asking other Fodorites is more reliable.