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Fake Reviews
interview with an insider
by Mara Bergman
years he was commissioned fake guest reviews of hotels. The hotel manager was on the Internet as a migrant to praise hotels or hotel to make competition difficult. Meanwhile, does he regret having sent to consumers on the wrong track. ZDF reporter Mara Bergman hit the inside at the Hamburg airport.
ZDFonline: You have made sure that hotels on the web look good or bad. What exactly did you?
Insider: I have written reviews, which have either a positive or negative tone. Depending on what my client has asked of me.
ZDFonline: Who was your client?
Insider: Mostly colleagues, hotels, who wanted to ensure that their recommendation rates are better in order to increase sales.
LINKS
woman in front of laptop with images of beach and sunset.
* vacation planning via Internet
ZDFonline: How exactly did you do that? The fakes on the Internet?
Insider: I have created fictional characters, which opened in the evaluation platform has its own Internet account have. And in whose name I then filed and written opinions.
ZDFonline: How many fictional characters have you had?
Insider: On 42nd Which means that I could write a month, about 120, 150 ratings.
ZDFonline: How successful were you?
Insider: About 90 percent of my reviews are actually appeared in the portals. Whether negative or positive.
ZDFonline: So you were critics of hotels, though you have never set foot in this hotel?
Insider: Either that or I'm gone targeted at hotels, to find the corners that can be evaluated negatively. To document this, I made some photos. There are in every hotel corners that look awfully bad in the photo. And you know, is plucked at what time the breakfast so that it no longer looks appetizing.
ZDF.online: What do you want to achieve with such photos in a review?
Insider: When you add a photo, you have provoked a rating that is most certainly checked off 50, 60 percent to be helpful. Any Internet user who reads an assessment may, yes, whether the evaluation was helpful to him or not. And the more useful it is, the more readers you trust.
ZDFonline: How important is it good for hotels on the Internet to stand?
Insider: Hotel guests can use portals and more frequently as a source. As for the hotels is extremely important to have good reviews on the web. A recommendation rate of 45 percent is fatal for a hotel, and means that no guests are there. If I have reached 75 percent, then the hotel has peak sales.
LINKS
* Scorched and bedded poorly
ZDFonline: Have you managed to change the ranking of the hotels?
Insider: Yes, in most cases by 30, 40 percent. And that means a lot for a hotel. And for me a lot of work. To undo a negative feedback, you need a normal hotel about ten Reviews that are positive, very positive. And if you have a hotel with a Recommendation of 43 percent, I need about six months to ensure that the hotel is good since.
ZDFonline: What was your incentive?
Insider: money. And of course success. Hotels that have great recommendation rates are successful hotel. I've written reviews for hotels at home and abroad. And since then jumped out and sometimes a nice holiday for me and my family.
ZDFonline: Many websites say yes, they controlled whether the reviews are real or not. Do they really?
Insider: They actually do this. It has recently been a frequent occurrence, residence certificates were required. But this can be avoided, of course.
ZDFonline: How do you handle such controls as a forger?
Insider: If I am someone, for example, of the hotel management and to forge in the sense of the hotel to write good reviews, then of course I always receive an invoice in hand, the management may issue myself. And if I want to evaluate a competing house badly, I was there before or have someone sent there. A stay statement is to organize a problem.
ZDFonline: And what about travel sites, where you can criticize until after booking?
Insider: The hurdles of booking portals like hotel.de or HRS can be circumvented. It is much more complicated, but it's quite possible there to accommodate a review. I book first - and after I got my assessment link, I rate the hotel and then cancel the trip. Also you can.
ZDF.online: How can I recognize as a holiday for which ratings are real and which fake?
Insider: You have to read reviews carefully. The stupid fake hear themselves as if they were from the Hotel Catalogue. They are fakes, which are usually written by the staff on site.
ZDFonline: And how would a professional to do?
Insider: A pro would never write an entirely positive review. The sits down and says: "We have in this house like usual, because it is beautifully appointed, although the furniture is already two to three years old." And then he says.
ZDFonline: Helps to look at the profile of the hotel rating?
Insider: First you can see, is when the user logged on. If it has made for a newly built hotel this review shortly after he has logged in the system, you should be hear everything. Second, you can check whether it rated hotels for a very specific group and a very specific situation. Third, you could see if the user wishes that you contact him. In most major review sites you can. If the author refuses to contact me, ever careful. Because most people who write such reviews, communicate do. So they are going into public portals.
ZDFonline: How big takes the counterfeiting at reviews on the Internet?
Insider: Great. To do an agency that is known in the industry. I'm assuming that about 20 percent of hotel reviews are fake. I think does not mean that it is limited to hotel reviews. The same problem is when it reviews Machinery, services. It is quite simply that is forged on the web.
Comment:
"To release a negative evaluation, needs a normal hotel about ten reviews that are positive, very positive."
If we trust the statements of insiders, so you as a hotel owner or apartment owner to a poor rating - whether justified or not - a significant drop in bookings. And it's hard, a bad rating with 10 good reviews again to "make good".
reason being that the contented do not want to write on the net. Only the whiners!
take And let's say someone writes after 1 week you have a bad Assessment. Then you as the landlord the next 10 tenants - get them to write about you good. If your rental period is 1 week, so you have "done away" after a single bad review earlier than after 11 weeks, the negative feedback. be
that hoteliers and apartment renters of holiday portal operators such unreasonable and unjust risks - they can ruin - is just unbelievable.
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