Review bias

Besides fake reviews, there is another systematic problem with the online rating market: they tend to over-represent the most extreme views due to review bias.

Review bias occurs because people tend to only post an online review either when they absolutely loved a venue - or absolutely hated it. People who hold moderate opinions of a venue are less likely to review it since they don’t feel the drive to do so. It creates a polarized online world of reviews where there is no bell curve, but rather the well-known J-shaped distribution: some very negative reviews, a larger amount of very positive reviews, and not much in between.

The review bias results in a completely inaccurate representation of the full range of customers their experiences. This is detrimental for the quality of insights, both for consumers and the businesses.

A 2018 study of Harvard Business Review shows that many of today’s most popular online review platforms cope with a distribution of opinion that is highly polarized, with many extreme positive and negative reviews, and few moderate opinions. The study concludes that monetary incentives work to improve the overall quality of reviews.