We have all seen them: those online reviews which seem to be quite contrary to the other reviews. For example, how can a hotel receiving mostly 4-5 star reviews all of a sudden get a bunch of one star reviews? Or - how can a restaurant that gets mostly 2 star reviews all of a sudden get glowing 5-star reviews?

The restaurant and hotel online scam review business

These reviews strongly impact the bottom line of a business. So, in order to ensure increased business, restaurant and hotels have found ways to scam online reviews by using third party businesses that advertise "real reviews - written by real people" to post false reviews, both to boost their popularity, and to decrease competitors' popularity.

The online review sites are fighting back. For example, Yelp has an automatic filter to flag fake reviews and take them off the front page. Amazingly, Yelp finds that almost 1 out of 5 reviews are tagged as fake by this filter. And, although it is comforting to know that Yelp and other online sites have automatic filtering, it is only a computer program. So, many reviews flagged as fake are real, and many fake reviews get through their filter.

How to read online reviews

So - what is a person suppose to do? Regulations are being imposed, and there are investigations against these scammers, but the volume of scams makes enforcement near impossible.

The best advice is to not rely on a single "score." As you read the reviews:

• look at all the restaurant and hotel review sites. A low score in, for example, Trip Advisor, with a high score in Hotels.com might mean that one of the online review sites has scam reviews for the establishment.
• mentally throw out the 5 star and 1 star reviews, and concentrate on what the 2-4 star reviews are saying.
• look at the some of the language. A hotel, for example, probably will not be "disgusting" with "blood stains" and "mold" if the majority of the reviews are positive. And, on the flip side, a hotel shouldn't have a rash of "best hotel ever" reviews if most of the reviews are 2 and 3-star reviews talking about an okay, but deteriorating, hotel.
• watch for a pattern. If you see 4-5 star reviews, then a rash of 1 star reviews, then 4-5 star reviews, that is a red flag: either a competitor is throwing reviews at them, or the business is posting rave reviews.

So, when it comes to online reviews, it is still "buyer beware." However, the online reviews are certainly better than nothing.