Dealing with shill reviewing

At UKNetMonitor we spend a lot of time monitoring what is being said about our clients on review sites, such as Ciao, DooYoo, TripAdvisor and so on. A frequent issue is that of "shill reviewing", where highly positive reviews are posted up - typically by someone employed to promote a brand, pretending to be a bona fide customers. These can be difficult to spot, and ordinary data miners typically fail and simply collect any review that is posted. Our human moderators check for veracity in a number of ways. Firstly, shill reviewers tend to be very crude and over egg the review posting uncritical comments. More importanly we take the trouble to see whether a poster is a long-standing member of that particular board, and whether or not they have posted reviews about other things. Nothing stands out more than someone making their first (and often only) post which is unequivocally favourable. We can also spot if the same of similar reviews appear elsewhere - particularly if they are all on the same day. What should a client do if we spot shill reviewing? Most boards will respond constructively to a take-down request. Shill reviewing is bad for their own integrity as much as anything else.

It is worth noting that this kind of activity is actually illegal in the UK. Posing as a consumer to promote something would be considered an unfair trading practice. The power of customer reviews does, however, remain strong. We are naturally inclined to believe what is said by reviewers, and more often than not consumer reviews are just that - honest accounts of someone's experience.