Y'all are more sophisticated than me, about the various rating services for lodging, food, places to see, and things to do, BUT... I wanted to bring up something that I just discovered when I went to see how the restaurants are rated in my (relatively) small town.
So it started when I looked up my favorite restaurant, and found that it only had a 3 star rating. Hey... this is an excellent rather large restaurant, clean, fresh, good food, and reasonable prices... good crowds of 50 to 150 patrons at a time. The rating came from 7 reviews. One 5 star. one 2 star, and five 1 star. Each of the 1 star reviews was similar... bad food, dirty, terrible furniture (it's all one year old) nasty waitresses, and cockroaches seen walking around.
Hmmm... So I looked for the highest rating restaurants, and the top three all had 5 star ratings... The top rated restaurant is in a very old building, and quite small... perhaps 6 tables of 4. Rating? 5 star... 241 ratings, 220 were 5 star.... go figure...
So, to look a little further...15 "raters" each of whom gave between 9 and 15 ratings of 5, over a period of two years. Janet K, Billie N., Joe Di, Maggie, etc.
So back to my favorite restaurant's top competitor... again 120 ratings almost all 5 star, and again... from 7 "raters"... three of whom were the one star raters of my favorite... "dirty, cold food, overpriced etc."
These ratings were on Trip Advisor which claims to have 500 million ratings, and an algorithm that accounts for recency and quality.... yet, when you look at an extended list of reviewers, you may see a review by John K, followed on the same listing by links to ten other reviews by the same person with the same rating stars... staggered over a one year period. Obviously a business that is gaming the system.
I don't expect that this would occur with major corporations, but after seeing this in my town, I would be inclined to trust (maybe), but verify.
Do you use rating services? Have they been accurate? Any that you implicitly trust?
So it started when I looked up my favorite restaurant, and found that it only had a 3 star rating. Hey... this is an excellent rather large restaurant, clean, fresh, good food, and reasonable prices... good crowds of 50 to 150 patrons at a time. The rating came from 7 reviews. One 5 star. one 2 star, and five 1 star. Each of the 1 star reviews was similar... bad food, dirty, terrible furniture (it's all one year old) nasty waitresses, and cockroaches seen walking around.
Hmmm... So I looked for the highest rating restaurants, and the top three all had 5 star ratings... The top rated restaurant is in a very old building, and quite small... perhaps 6 tables of 4. Rating? 5 star... 241 ratings, 220 were 5 star.... go figure...
So, to look a little further...15 "raters" each of whom gave between 9 and 15 ratings of 5, over a period of two years. Janet K, Billie N., Joe Di, Maggie, etc.
So back to my favorite restaurant's top competitor... again 120 ratings almost all 5 star, and again... from 7 "raters"... three of whom were the one star raters of my favorite... "dirty, cold food, overpriced etc."
These ratings were on Trip Advisor which claims to have 500 million ratings, and an algorithm that accounts for recency and quality.... yet, when you look at an extended list of reviewers, you may see a review by John K, followed on the same listing by links to ten other reviews by the same person with the same rating stars... staggered over a one year period. Obviously a business that is gaming the system.
I don't expect that this would occur with major corporations, but after seeing this in my town, I would be inclined to trust (maybe), but verify.
Do you use rating services? Have they been accurate? Any that you implicitly trust?