Like others have said, take TA reviews with a grain of salt. If it is a local small mom and pop you will often find self promoting reviews either from the establishment or it's competitors. Always look at the number of reviews a contributor has before trusting them.

Here is some insider info: TripAdvisor is 100% NOT reliable in Thailand. There is so much fraud for reviews there, and the business owners go to the greatest extent to hide their actions of false reviews, that TA can't keep up with it for this country.

So interesting. IMO for the most part, the reviews are fairly easy to discern the bogus and hyped from the factual and detailed if you read enough of them.
However, it's eye opening to learn that the forums are also censored to the extent that replies are actually inaccurate. It would stand to reason that other posters would correct the inaccuracies. Such a shame.

Aloha BostonFlyer:

Your information about the reviews for Thailand is consistant with my own experience with other destinations. TripAdvisor headquarters is nearby your home base and maybe you'll have the opportunity to mention this to someone working or consulting there. When TA became a public company, I had hopes that their cuture of censorship and inaction on fraud would change for the benefit of shareholders. I tried reporting my own concerns to their board of directors using this form:
contact the TA board

I never received a reply, and assume that TA management also censors communication with their own board. Perhaps you would have better luck if you are willing to try.

It is a shame as you say. TA has the opportunity to "do good" for their members, but unlike the Google business model, they instead "do bad things". I am thankful that FlyerTalk has such high regard for open and truthful communication.

I actually think many of the fake reviews are easy to spot, but the problem I think is getting worse in that the fakers are getting smarter and creating real looking profile with a picture of some random person and adding reviews of other hotels randomly to build up an apparent presence. And I think they get away with it because of TA's tolerance of openly fake reviews. It has built up a huge culture of hotels globally pumping their reviews and now they are just getting smarter about it. I think if TA had done what it should and stamped it out early it would not have become so endemic. Amazon have also been subject to shill reviewing but have done their best IMHO to stamp it out. But as pointed out here, TA actually encourage it, and if you criticize it in their forums, they wipe you out. TripAdvisor is a VERY badly run site and anyone taking any of the reviews there seriously today is gullible beyond belief. It is quite sad, I have posted dozens of reviews myself but frankly will not bother going forward, there are better sources of information elsewhere that are not so distorted.

As someone with knowledge of how TA operates, I can assure you that TA works to their fullest extent to remove fraud from their website. They have entire departments working on this sole issue. It isn't due to inaction, it is due to the sheer volume of fraud that makes it difficult for the teams to remove every issue.

Sorry but I just don't buy it. Either they are incompetent, or such departments are established to create the look of caring about it while not actually doing so. There are plenty of suggestions on how they can filter out fake reviews which they have never even tried to implement, and they clearly censor all criticism in their forums.

I gave up on TA long ago, but not because of the questionable/bogus reviews, but rather because they have lots of amateur travelers. TA folks who travel once a year, or once every coupla years, are easily impressed. If they live in Provo and go to an island it's nirvana.

I agree completely and am not buying it either. Why does BostonFlyer defend TA right after exposing massive fraud in their Thailand reviews? My own experience is that TA did not act on fraudulent reviews. Who knows if their "entire departments" of investigators reached the same conclusion; the point is the bogus reviews remained in place. Most importantly, why does TA censor all forum comments on this topic if they are truly doing everything possible?

I defend TA because you are saying that there is no action on TA's part to remove fraud. I know for a fact that there are "Fraud Departments" that have their own proprietary formula/method of detecting and removing fraud. Is it perfect? Probably not. I also know that while you may have had a bad experience with a review (i.e. knew that it was fake), I'm going to guess that TA probably doesn't remove every alleged fake review for obvious reasons (i.e. a merchant doesn't like a review, thus claims it is fake) unless it is 100% sure it is truly fraud.

In my experience, I have always reconciled TA with Google Reviews, OpenTable, etc. to validate the claims one one site vs. the other.

Disclaimer: I have absolutely no affiliation with or interest in seeing TA succeed or fail. I am only stating facts that I know as 100% true and accurate.

Thank you for your disclaimer. I have no way of knowing the staffing at TA and only have my own experience to rely upon. I am a traveler and not a merchant claiming that a review is fake. It seems to me that all TA need do in the case of a suspicious review (like the ones I reported as suspicious), is to require receipts. If you read my prior posts, you'll see that my account at TA has been disabled because I stated that the forums are censoring and bullying those members who question the accuracy of reviews.

Tripadvisor has become a Advertising platform site
 

Tripadvisor has become a Advertising platform site

What a very narrow view. Someone can travel every week of the year, staying at Motel 6's with one luxury resort vacation a year, and still be in exactly the same position of being impressed by an exotic island.

Or someone can travel very infrequently, but hold the resort to the same high standards they do in other spheres (for example, they may have business lunches and dinners in the best restaurants, in which case, I'd take their comments that a hotel's food offering were 'fantastic' as a good indication.

Forget 'impressions' or 'feelings' and look at what the traveller, experienced or otherwise, actually writes. I ignore the unqualified comments, and look for the details on how the staff were good, why the room was luxurious, what food was served etc. and form your own opinion.

I cannot see TA EVER requesting receipts. Firstly, not everyone who reviews has a receipt (guests at a lunch are just as valid a reviewer in my opinion as the person who paid), or don't have them handy, or they have a travel agent receipt somewhere in their email which has their real name, address etc. on it.

TA relies on users willing to write reviews - they aren't going to discourage them from doing so by making it harder, requiring personal information etc.

Secondly, if a hotel is paying someone to write a review - do you not think it would be very easy for them to send the reviewer a fake receipt anyway?

Thirdly, anyone with basic computer skills can type up a fake receipt - TA aren't going to know what every receipt looks like are they?