Trip advisor have upgraded their software. Its not a good upgrade

[ghworker2010]

I use trip advisor a lot to choose hotels when traveling around Thailand.

 

They have recently done an upgrade. I can't believe that they have removed the member report count. ie normally when one reads a review written by someone, you can see how many reviews they have done in the past. Obviously when you see a hotel with a lot of 1's you know its the hotel owner likely to be writing it. Some hotels are clearly writing their own reviews as there are so many reviews with just being the first time to use trip advisor. 

 

But if I see a count of above 10 or 20 then I generally know its a real review. Now this functionality is completely gone and thus now there is no way of knowing if a positive review is real or not. 

 

The integrity of Trip advisor has now gone down substantially IMHO....

[Jingthing]

The feature is still there for restaurant reviews though. 

[ghworker2010]

12 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

The feature is still there for restaurant reviews though. 

Thats fair enough but when reading about hotels I specifically used to look at that count function under the user name to determine if I would bother reading the review. I would never bother to read a review that was on the first post (ie newly registered). Surely trip advisor understand the issue of fake reviews. <deleted>>>??

[Jingthing]

Just now, ghworker2010 said:

Thats fair enough but when reading about hotels I specifically used to look at that count function under the user name to determine if I would bother reading the review. I would never bother to read a review that was on the first post (ie newly registered). Surely trip advisor understand the issue of fake reviews. <deleted>>>??

I agree that it's useful but it's more useful for restaurants. Lots of people don't travel very often. They might go on holiday and stay at one hotel in one place, then review it. Travelers usually eat at restaurants daily. 

[stevenl]

20 hours ago, Jingthing said:

I agree that it's useful but it's more useful for restaurants. Lots of people don't travel very often. They might go on holiday and stay at one hotel in one place, then review it. Travelers usually eat at restaurants daily. 

Problem is more fake reviews, which is a major issue on TripAdvisor.

[phuketrichard]

Never use TA for hotels as Anyone can submit a report without ever staying there,

Use booking.com or agoda where ONLY those that have stayed there can make a report

 

As for restaurants never use ta, most "tourists" have no idea what good food is.. ????

[Jingthing]

2 hours ago, stevenl said:

Problem is more fake reviews, which is a major issue on TripAdvisor.

Wait a sec. You can book hotels through TA so they're verified guests, right, like a typical booking site?

So why are fake hotel reviews a problem?

Restaurants, of course.

Obviously if a restaurant is rated high and most of the reviews are one visit, something is fishy.

[JerseytoBKK]

2 hours ago, phuketrichard said:

Never use TA for hotels as Anyone can submit a report without ever staying there,

Use booking.com or agoda where ONLY those that have stayed there can make a report

 

As for restaurants never use ta, most "tourists" have no idea what good food is.. ????

I use all 3 for hotels. Sometimes the extended reviews on TA give good additional info, but I give more weight to reviews from the other sources.

 

Completely agree about TA and restaurants. Last year there was a restaurant in the top 10 for Bangkok that shouldn't even be in the top 200. It's now dropped down to the top 50. Most of the reviews were by tourists. Meanwhile there is a place that is on the recommended Michelin list that's really good but only rated by TA at 2,000 out of 11,000+ places in Bangkok.

[phuketrichard]

2 hours ago, Jingthing said:

Wait a sec. You can book hotels through TA so they're verified guests, right, like a typical booking site?

So why are fake hotel reviews a problem?

Restaurants, of course.

Obviously if a restaurant is rated high and most of the reviews are one visit, something is fishy.

did u not read what i wrote?
ANYONE can make a review of anything on TA without ever have visiting, sleeping or eating there.

[Jingthing]

38 minutes ago, phuketrichard said:

did u not read what i wrote?
ANYONE can make a review of anything on TA without ever have visiting, sleeping or eating there.

Got it now. Yeah, that certainly is messed up.