How we fight fake reviews

Fake reviews, spam and rating manipulation are the main risks for a review platform. Here are the mechanisms we put in place to guarantee the reliability of the information.

Verifying contributors

Verified user : a badge granted by the moderation team to authenticated accounts.
Verified address : confirmation of the email address at sign-up.
Regular contributor : a badge for people who have published several quality reviews, which increases the weight of their contributions in the trust index.

Trust index

Every place shows a trust index (from 0 to 100%) computed from several factors: number of reviews, their age, diversity of contributors, share of verified accounts, and detection of suspicious reviews. A place with only 2 reviews does not artificially rank better than one with 2,000.

Automatic detection

Detection of abnormal spikes of reviews over a short period (smear or inflation campaign).
Detection of accounts created shortly before a review and having a single contribution.
Detection of duplicates and similar content published from different accounts.
Detection of repetitive or automatically generated language.

Citizen reporting

Anyone can report a suspicious review. Reported reviews are examined by the moderation team. Reporting is confidential and does not immediately penalise the place concerned.

Moderation actions

Reviews identified as fake or manipulated may be hidden. The accounts responsible may be suspended. Every moderation action is logged in a register available to administrators. Automated assistance helps moderators but never removes a sensitive review without human review.

Transparency

We regularly publish statistics on moderation actions: number of hidden reviews, suspended accounts, campaigns detected. This transparency is essential to keep the community’s trust.