I'm surprised to see people still debating the issue of review sites, whether TA or any other. None of them have been reliable for years.

If you still need convincing as to just how unreliable TA et all are, just read about the guy who invented a London, England restaurant and had it become the #1 TA choice!

https://www.google.ca/search?rlz=1C1....0.OkyCSwlFRck

I find the food photos he used particularly amusing. Imagine one of those round deodorizer 'cakes' that you see in a men's urinal sometimes, disguised as a fudge brownie with some shaving cream on top. He even had a top food critic trying to make a reservation. You gotta admire the guy's inventiveness and imagination though.

Nowadays, there is an entire industry generating fake reviews on every kind of review site. Here is an example of a company that will happily post positive reviews: https://reviewsthatstick.com/

And for video reviews, here is a woman who will not only post positive reviews for a business but will happily dress up and lie about her background to increase the likelyhood of the viewer believing her.
Prolific video testimonial creator says there's 'nothing wrong' with selling reviews - Business - CBC News Watch the little sample video clip, very enlightening.

The only reviews you can rely on are those given by people you know and trust.

I don't really take TA as the gospel truth to begin with .... I use it to help form a general impression of the place, see photos taken by guests, that sort of thing. I find it to still be a very useful tool for that purpose.

I post a lot of Yelp reviews but only a few on TripAdvisor. Other than hopefully helping out strangers, I don't quite know what the benefit to posting is. At least Yelp has "elite" status that gets you invites to some events. But I am grateful for reviews of some of the properties that most Flyertalkers wouldn't ever consider let alone review.

Same here.

it's a tool. 1 tool.

how it's used is up to the operator, not a fault of the tool.

I agree Deniiah and I believe it is being used by the unsuspecting. Trip Adviser with its many underlying corporations that govern it are nor providing services to actually care about the clientele (whomever they are). But yes many people do not care as much about where they are going nor where they are staying. But they will give a quick nod to a site like TA and possibly say "OK" we go here. I actually heard some tourists at the airport here say "what hotel are we going to" as they looked for a transport bus at the airport patking lot.

What I do not understand is why you quit writing reviews when you noticed fake ones? A LOT of people are fully aware of how to spot fake reviews, and appreciate ones that are not. Just because of some bad apples, why are you giving up? Anyone who has been around TA any length of time know enough not to take every review as gospel, but learn over time how to spot fake, or even just one off reviews from a single angry incidence.

As with all things, TripAdvisor is a tool that has its positives and negatives--not unlike FlyerTalk.

Anyone who relies on TripAdvisor rankings to decide between hotels or restaurants is likely a fool. It's obvious that false reviews can impact those too easily.

That being said, I find TripAdvisor to be a powerful tool to get a better sense of a place and to get more information. Of course, I have rules:

(1) If a reviewer hasn't reviewed at least 20-25 other hotels or restaurants, I don't trust that hotel or restaurant review. I check.
(2) I check reviews overall AND for the specific timeframe I'll be there. Season and occupancy can make a big difference.
(3) I always message the reviewers for the top 5-10 reviews that seem to be particularly reliable and/or make me like or dislike a hotel. I always get a response--and that makes me feel much more confident in my estimations. That I always get a response makes me feel more comfortable with the way I evaluate reviews on TripAdvisor, too.
(4) I ignore any and all reviews from reviewers with only 1-5 reviews.
(5) I place a lot more stock in reviews whose reviewers have stayed at other hotels or dined at other restaurants I also know.

I find it very easy to get additional info (how is the air con?) and lots of great recommendations when I message the individual reviewers, too.

I utilize much of the above quite successfully. I also 'filter in' negative reviews for the past year as I generally find that the negative reviews are due to a very particular issue. Finally, I will check booking or hotels .com to cross-reference the reviews. Many writers on TA are good about responding to questions, and I do my best to reciprocate.

Here's how I deal with TA and other sites were reviews get posted.

I ignore them.

I have stopped posting on and checking TA and other sites about 6 months ago (after being a prolific reviewer) once I had a realization that probably 50% of what you read there is prefabricated BS from reputation management schemes, or stuff that was posted by kettles.

Why though ? Well, I only go to a bad place once. And my interpretation of what's bad, will be different than yours, and yours, and yours.....etc. YMMV............

TA sucks for specifics anymore but you can still get a good feel for a place by looking at it. Especially if there are a bunch of user uploaded pictures. Though anymore TA is something you can use to help you decide on where to stay, rather than being a one stop place to look like it was a few years ago.

The bigger the online content provider/facilitator becomes, the more the tendency to kiss up to the more powerful business and government interests. TripAdvisor and FT are a sign of that dynamic and it ends up being to the disadvantage of critical observers and contributors who would have previously relied upon what those content providers/facilities enabled in the travel space. It doesn’t make the space useless, just less useful if not downplaying expectations for such sites and adjusting how to process the content.

I agree, although to some extent, TA has been made at least partially obsolete by improved websites. 10-12 years ago many hotel websites were very rudimentary... fast forward to now and most have a huge assortment of photos that help you get a sense for what a hotel is all about.

Yes the websites have improved but also the degree to which customers in all sectors rely on peer feedback and reviews has gone up. Any open-sourced review system is liable to gaming, and it will always be an ongoing game of cat and mouse.

However what bothers me with TripAdvisor is not the hotels gaming the system but the degree to which TripAdvisor itself goes to delay, censor and block negative reviews. This puts an artificially positive bias on everything viewed there.

So there is no danger of it being obsolete. More like they have it so good that their greed to please the advertisers is what will kill them in the end.