Millions of people visit TripAdvisor each month, relying on more than 795 million traveller reviews and opinions to help them make plans.
Creating a platform for people to share their experiences has created huge benefits. Honest and unbiased reviews give businesses access to valuable insights and are a powerful tool to attract customers from across the globe. On the flip side, fake, biased or unfair reviews can be frustrating for business owners.
Ensuring the content on TripAdvisor is reliable is our first priority. Only 2.1 per cent of 66 million reviews were found to be fraudulent in 2018, the majority of which were caught before they were made public.
We know we still have work to do. But we’re committed to fighting against all types of fraud, and believe no other review platform does more to protect the integrity of their content.
Over the past 20 years, TripAdvisor has developed an industry-leading content moderation process to maintain the integrity of reviews.
When discussing unfair reviews, there are two scenarios:
• Fake review — A review submitted by someone who is either biased or did not have a personal experience with the business they are reviewing. We consider there to be three types of fake reviews:
• Biased positive reviews — a favourable review submission by an employee.
• Biased negative reviews — an intentionally damaging review submission by a competitor.
• Paid reviews — a positive review that a business has purchased in an attempt to increase their ranking.
• Contested review — A review submitted by someone who did have a personal experience with the business (and is not biased by having a connection with the business), but what their review describes is disputed by the business.
Using a sophisticated and multi-layered approach, TripAdvisor works hard to block fake reviews from the site. We have posting guidelines that all reviews must adhere to. We enforce these guidelines through a combination of smart technology and a dedicated team of expert moderators.
Before a review is posted to the site, it goes through hundreds of automatic checks. This tracking system allows a review to be posted, blocks a review from being posted or sends a notification to a moderation team for human analysis if the system suspects the review may be fake.
In instances where a fake review is detected, a business may be subject to a penalty ranking, which is a reduction of a property’s position within the popularity or ranking on-site. Only 1 per cent of reviews on our site are contested once posted, however, if you are concerned a review is an unfair portrayal of your business, report it via the TripAdvisor Management Centre.
If our moderation team concludes a review meets our guidelines, it will remain posted. However, there are steps you can take to lessen the impact
of a contested review, including posting a response that gives your side of the story.
To find out more about our content moderation process and contesting reviews, visit tripadvisor.com.au/TripAdvisorInsights/w3680
