In the digital era, you see people dropping reviews online as customers. We can even see companies seeking a platform to provide them with online reviews to boost their business. You might have heard or read about online review filters and how it might have caused frustrations or confusion. Understanding search engine filtering of customer reviews can help you minimize this vagueness.
Why do we need to filter reviews?
We can see an obvious sky-rocket in searching among people in the past decade. People depend on their search results and the reviews they read about a particular thing.
Reviews can be an excellent scale to measure the popularity of a business. It also gives real-life experience to searchers for a specific kind of business or service or etc.
If reviews are so cool and helpful, why do we need an algorithm to filter them?
Since the development of technology, you see that robots also can drop reviews. Some companies even hire people who even might not be customers to give them good reviews. We can also see companies dropping reviews for themselves. So, there you have the reasons for the filtering of customer reviews. For instance, on social media platforms, Instagram uses the filtering algorithm for cleaning the purchased followers.
How does the filtering work?
The specific details of these kinds of algorithms have not been revealed, but the general sense of the mechanism is out there, which is the backbone of most filtering algorithms. Filtering gets triggered when one or more of the following happens:
• Sudden increase in the number of reviews in a short period of time
• Abnormal usage of keywords
• Overuse of complimenting adjectives or swearwords
• Link usage in the reviews
Some of the more advanced and cutting-edge filters do not only stop at the aforementioned points. They also check the characteristics of users, such as:
• The IP addresses
• Number of reviews written by a single user on a website
• How often a user leaves reviews on a particular site
Considering the points above, one could understand how probable it is for the fake reviewers to get stuck in the filter, all thanks to the smart algorithm.
Among social media, Instagram has the most advanced filtering to distinguish inappropriate activities such as liking posts more than limit or following more than normal users.
The problems with filtering of customer reviews
Of course, there has been no claim saying these filters are flawless. On the contrary, small business owners are furious with these filters since:
- The authentic reviews left by less active or sophisticated customers get omitted
- It causes the consumers’ decisions to be less informed
- It disheartens new users to leave reviews.
Considering the flaws in the filtering, is there a way to dodge these problems?
What is the solution?
First, we should note that as we progress, the filtering algorithms are becoming smarter and smarter. We might even face a day that flawless algorithms are emerging.
Anyway, as a new user, do not get saddened if you get trapped in the filtering net. By becoming more active on leaving different reviews on different websites, you and your IP will get known as a genuine reviewer.
Try to use a gentle and subtle tone in your reviews. That does not mean that you have to be monotonous. It means you should not be too enthusiastic or too dull with your words. Overcompensation in your content triggers the filtering algorithm to consider you and your review as spam. You don’t have to come up with big words to be considered a reviewer; you just have to sound humanistic.
Even if you have been paid to drop reviews for a business, try to act smart and come up with a periodic system of leaving reviews. The interval and the number of reviews in a certain amount of time should be handled tastefully in order to pass the filtering, a skill that some websites have developed it to perfection.
Conclusion
Understanding search engine filtering of customer reviews can be most effective for both business owners and reviewers to know how to manage their protocol of leaving reviews in this smart new world of technology.
Of course, the level of difficulty for the filtering varies from platform to platform, and indeed the main method will never get revealed by them. Still, by knowing the facts about their procedure, you will have a more delightful and fruitful time leaving reviews online.