How to Find Reliable Reviews Online

With the increasing popularity of blogging and community-driven content sites such as Digg and Del.i.cious, there is a seemingly endless supply of opinions and viewpoints published on the web everyday. Many of these opinions focus on recent gadgets that the writers have purchased – cell phones, PDAs, laptops or computer software to name a few examples. While it may be interesting and entertaining to read, how do you know if the opinion is really reliable? Can you trust this information to help you make a decision about an upcoming purchase?

The key to utilizing product reviews on the web is assessing the reliability of the source and the accuracy of the information. To assess reliability, I recommend that you understand who the writer is and what their reasons are for writing the review. This is similar to the approach you would use to evaluate opinions you heard at work, at school, at a car dealership, or any other situation where you were presented with a recommendation for or against something. The recommendation should be run through a sort of “Trust Test" ---

1) Is this person trying to sell me something?

Usually a salesperson is interested in only one thing: their commission. And to get more commission, they will usually do their best to get you to spend your money first and ask questions later. Don’t get me wrong, not all salespeople are bad. But you just need to keep this in mind as a possible motivation when reading through a review.

2) Does this person have a vested interest (such as financial gain) hidden in their viewpoint?

This question is similar to the previous one on salespeople, but not exactly the same. In the online world a writer may be promoting something with the sole motivation to make money. A good example is a writer who rates every product highly with the hope that it will generate more sales of those products through his or her site.

3) Does this person have my best interests in mind?

Following along the same lines as the hidden agenda question above, this question speaks to the trustworthiness of the writer. If a writer is promoting everything they write about, and is trying their best to sell you that particular product without completing a thorough evaluation of the product, then they obviously are not keeping your best interests in mind.

4) Is this person holding a grudge against the company or manufacturer of the product?

Finally, this perspective would obviously skew the writer’s perspective on any product from that particular company. If you see that the writer has used inflammatory and/or offensive wording toward a company when reviewing one of their products, you can bet that there is more to the story than meets the eye.

Thinking through the answers to these questions may throw up some red flags and cause you to re-evaluate what you are reading. This is a good thing! You should feel comfortable with the writer’s intentions before you take their recommendation seriously.

To summarize – after reading each review you should be asking yourself: is the person who wrote the opinion supplying a credible, unbiased source of information?