{"id":368,"date":"2011-11-10T10:12:28","date_gmt":"2011-11-10T14:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dankrell.com\/blog\/?p=368"},"modified":"2019-09-17T09:36:10","modified_gmt":"2019-09-17T13:36:10","slug":"are-internet-realtor-reviews-real-or-fake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dankrell.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/10\/are-internet-realtor-reviews-real-or-fake\/","title":{"rendered":"Are internet Realtor\u00ae reviews real or fake?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"internet<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The internet is a great tool. It conveniently provides access to information about real estate activity and home sales to assist you in your decision making. It\u2019s only natural that people tend to gravitate to the internet because it provides somewhat of a buffer from aggressive real estate agents; it allows a certain amount of anonymity. This may also be a reason for the rise in popularity of internet Realtor\u00ae reviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, internet anonymity can be a two way street. Besides reading online what others are saying about your agent, without anyone being the wiser; online reviews are often posted without verification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An August 19th New York Times article by David Streitfeld (In a Race to Out-Rave, 5-Star Web Reviews Go for $5: Printed August 20, 2011, on page A1 of the New York edition<\/a>) is an expos\u00e9 of the fake review business. Yup, fake online reviews. Streitfeld describes how in an effort for online businesses to appear better than the competition, \u201can industry of fibbers and promoters has sprung up to buy and sell raves for a pittance.\u201d Streitfeld illustrates the \u201cgame\u201d as it\u2019s played; posts on websites such as Craigslist and help for hire sites offer a positive review for a fee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also known as \u201cdeceptive opinion spam\u201d or \u201creview spam, Cornell researchers claim \u201cthese fake reviews are fictitious opinions deliberately written to sound authentic, in order to deceive the reader.\u201d They conclude that the detection of fake reviews is \u201cwell beyond the capability of human judges;\u201d and recommend an analysis of reviews to include, among other things, psycho-linguistically motivated features. (Proceedings of the 49th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, pages 309\u2013319, Portland, Oregon, June 19-24, 2011.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere have always been fake reviews from employees and competitors,\u201d states Greg Sterling, of Sterling Market Intelligence, in a March 7th blog post \u201cFighting the Rise of Paid Reviews.” Describing the increase of \u201cguaranteed positive reviews\u201d for a fee, \u201c\u2026 the increasing importance of online reputation to consumers and the potential influence on rankings that reviews bring the stakes are higher than ever. Hence the emergence of services that will guarantee positive reviews.\u201d He further states, \u201cI don\u2019t know this but my guess is that somewhere in some room \u2026 there are minions writing positive reviews without ever having actually used the business or visited its location.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Association of Realtors\u00ae (NAR) code of ethics prohibits deceptive practices, which includes posting or encouraging fake reviews. However, Lani Rosales of AGBeat argues that there has always been an element posting fake Realtor\u00ae reviews and testimonials (\u201cSketchy new trend \u2013 hiring fake online review writers\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Internet<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

What to do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suresh Srinivasan of agent reputation platform ReachFactor (ReachFactor.com) stated in email correspondence that review spam is a \u201cbig and growing problem. It’s extremely cheap to pay others \u2026to write a review of any service professional.\u201d He states that many websites get \u201cgamed\u201d because they only require the reviewer to register but don’t actually verify that a transaction took place with the agent. He points out that even though some popular real estate websites try to read every review, it is not entirely effective in weeding out the fake reviews. Mr. Srinivasan\u2019s company verifies factual information collected about Realtors\u00ae so as to ensure consumer transparency as well holding Realtors\u00ae to a higher ethical standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Dan Krell. Copyright \u00a9 2011 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is not intended to provide nor should it be relied upon for legal and financial advice. Using this article without permission is a violation of copyright laws. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The internet is a great tool. It conveniently provides access to information about real estate activity and home sales to assist you in your decision making. It\u2019s only natural that people tend to gravitate to the internet because it provides somewhat of a buffer from aggressive real estate agents; it allows a certain amount of … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Are internet Realtor\u00ae reviews real or fake?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[303,24,42,80,13],"tags":[463,464],"class_list":["post-368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-code-of-ethics","category-internet","category-internet-home-search","category-nar","category-real-estate","tag-finding-a-realtor","tag-internet-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1VZLf-5W","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dankrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dankrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dankrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dankrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dankrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/dankrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5526,"href":"https:\/\/dankrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions\/5526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dankrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dankrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dankrell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}