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Travel review website TripAdvisor will be investigated by the advertising watchdog after claims that a large proportion of the site’s 50million reviews are fake.The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has launched an investigation into the company after it received a complaint urging it to look into the website.The formal complaint was lodged by KwikChex, an online reputation management company, which stated that the level of reviews which are fake and misleading has now reached ‘epidemic levels’.

Probe: TripAdvisor is to be investigated by the advertising watchdog
The website is extremely popular with travellers looking for good quality accommodation, with many making judgements on whether to book a place after reading the reviews and following its five star rating system.TripAdvisor claims to provide ‘honest travel reviews and opinions from real travellers around the world’ and is trusted by millions worldwide.It receives 45million unique visitors a month and getting to the top of its ratings can be worth thousands of pounds in bookings to a hotel.However, the ASA will investigate claims that a large number of the 50million reviews are written by either hotel owners, agencies paid by hotel owners to write hundreds of fake reviews or by rivals leaving negative reviews to take their business.
 



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The review writing firmsThere are several websites and freelance writers offering to post fake reviews on review and rating websites, such as TripAdvisor.One such website offers to write up to 1,000 reviews for just over £900 a month.It claims to have ‘hundreds of thousands of unique IP addresses’  to counteract the problem of reviews all coming from the same location and ‘thousands of Gmail and Yahoo accounts,’ to make it appear that reviews are coming from a genuine source.Chris Emmins, of Kwikchex, says he has been studying TripAdvisor for the past eight months and believes that 10million reviews on the website could be fake.He said: 'What we really wanted is to see an impartial authority examine TripAdvisor's claims of trustworthiness.'We don't want them to reveal company secrets, we just want to know how they verify their reviews.'DOES IT MATTER IF TRIPADVISOR HAS DODGY REVIEWS?Comment by Simon Lambert

Simon Lambert
Do
you trust online reviews? None seem to divide opinion as much asTripAdvisor. With a good rating able to make or break a place to stay,
a cottage industry of dodgy reviews has sprung up and the site's
critics can be vehement in their attacks.Researchers
claim to have found the ways to spot a fake review, in response to the
furore about underhand tactics used to bump up ratings. Now the
Advertising Standards Authority has said it will be looking into Trip
Advisor's claim to genuine reviews.But
are we at risk of missing the wider benefit here? I've read plenty of
dodgy reviews on TripAdvisor and lots of obvious hatchet jobs, yet in
the few years I've used it to research places to stay it has been
invaluable.I've stayed in
some great places I would never have otherwise found and avoided some
right dumps that would have been a nasty surprise on arrival. A similar
thing is true of most internet review sites I've used.When
we gather information, be it news or restaurant or hotel reviews, we
should know not to put all our trust in one source. You do your
research, listen to differing points of view and maker your own mind
up. Some reviews will always be iffy - that is life.Likewise,
at a time when good news seems so hard to come by, perhaps it's time to
reclaim internet reviews, on everything from local websites, to the
giants like Trip Advisor. The way to beat the con artists is to drown
them in real reviews. If you stay somewhere nice, eat somewhere good,
or buy something you like from some nice people, go out and tell the
world.It's a virtuous circle that means we can trust online reviews more and great businesses get the good publicity they need.Reviews are big business for hotel ownersA variety of hotels offer incentives for customers to leave positive feedback on the website, such as a free meal or a room upgrade, showing how important it can be for the business.For example, The Cove Hotel in Cornwall was recently revealed to offer a discount on food and drink and a ‘free apartment upgrade’ in exchange for ‘honest and positive’ reviews on TripAdvisor.Adam Raphael, the editor of the Good Hotel Guide, said that the ASA’s investigation is ‘overdue.’He said: 'TripAdvisor is wide open to collusive and malicious reviews.'Mr Raphael said he and others had set up bogus accounts to test the website's verification systems.'We used very over-the-top language and obviously we hadn't been to the hotel but the reviews were published.'One person I know wrote 127 fake reviews just to prove that the systems don't work.' The ASA probe will take several months. It is believed that TripAdvisor will be asked to prove that they verify reviews and the steps they take to weed out fake and misleading reviews.A spokesman from the ASA confirmed they were looking into the complaint and whether ‘claims by TripAdvisor on their website, that user reviews were genuine and could be trusted, were misleading and could be substantiated’.If the ASA isn’t satisfied with the findings from the site, it will force TripAdvisor to withdraw claims that their reviews are genuine and can be trusted. Angus Struthers, senior director of global communications at TripAdvisor, said: 'TripAdvisor does not comment on current or potential regulatory investigations or litigation.'We take the authenticity of our reviews very seriously and have numerous methods to ensure the legitimacy of the content on TripAdvisor, including automated site tools, a team of review integrity experts, and our large and passionate community of millions of travellers that help us identify suspicious content.'We devote thousands of hours each year to battling fraud and improving our fraud detection efforts to ensure the integrity of our content.'DOES IT MATTER IF TRIPADVISOR HAS DODGY REVIEWS?Comment by Simon LambertDo you trust online reviews? None seem to divide opinion as much TripAdvisor. With a good rating able to make or break a place to stay, a cottage industry of dodgy reviews has sprung up and the site's critics can be vehement in their attacks.Researchers claim to have found the ways to spot a fake review, in response to the furore about underhand tactics used to bump up ratings. Now the Advertising Standards Authority has said it will be looking into Trip Advisor's claim to genuine reviews.But are we at risk of missing the wider benefit here? I've read plenty of dodgy reviews on TripAdvisor and lots of obvious hatchet jobs, yet in the few years I've used it to research places to stay it has been invaluable.I've stayed in some great places I would never have otherwise found and avoided some right dumps that would have been a nasty surprise on arrival. A similar thing is true of most internet review sites I've used.When we gather information, be it news or restaurant or hotel reviews, we should know not to put all our trust in one source. You do your research, listen to differing points of view and maker your own mind up. Some reviews will always be iffy - that is life.Likewise, at a time when good news seems so hard to come by, perhaps it's time to reclaim internet reviews, on everything from local websites, to the giants like Trip Advisor. The way to beat the con artists is to drown them in real reviews. If you stay somewhere nice, eat somewhere good, or buy something you like from some nice people, go out and tell the world.It's a virtous circle that means we can trust online reviews more and great businesses get the good publicity they need.