I was a big fan of Amazon.com and Yelp.com — sites where users of products, services and businesses would be able to leave reviews and ratings of their experiences.  In 2008, I realized that my reviews were not just useless, but they were making other businesses money with the time I spent.  My reviews were useless because there was no way for anyone who read my review to know who I was, what I was about, and if I was a paid shill leaving that review.  Around the end of 2008, I stopped leaving reviews on all sites completely.

When I reviewed my advertising and affiliate income for 2008, I was shocked to find that almost 15% of my income was based on a handful of reviews I placed over the years I’ve edited this site.  It’s not a huge amount of income, but it more than offset the cost of purchasing every single item or service or business I reviewed.  The advertising for the steakhouse I reviewed in 2007 has paid almost 5 times the cost of that dinner.  A cell phone I reviewed in 2006 has paid for itself 32 times over!

Now there’s news that Belkin had an online sales manager who paid shills to leave positive reviews at Amazon.  Even worse, the blogger who revealed this mess also helped discover that the same sales manager, Mike Bayard, also created false profiles on Amazon to leave his own reviews.  The comments at Arlen Parsa’s blog speak volumes about why I don’t leave reviews on other sites, and why I don’t believe reviews I read.

Mitur Binesderti left the following comment there:

The shocking thing is anyone actually believes online reviews. I always ignore the positive ones, no real person that isn’t a fan boy or employee will think something is perfect so why waste your time with 5 star reviews. Look for 1 to 3 star reviews, just make sure you don’t get suckered into believing the bad reviews are all honest either.

The other day, I just told a friend who was out on a job hunt that the best reviews, to me, are those that leave 3 stars out of 5 and then back it up.  VERY FEW people leave 5 stars, other than employees, friends, and family, it seems.  I rarely do.  When a business gets a solid 3 - 3.5 stars, I’ll tend to believe it is well suited for a visit.  If a business gets 5 stars with very few reviews, I’ll know the place is likely terrible.  Some review sites let you see how many reviews a reviewer has left in total, and this CAN help gauge the quality of that review.  I’d love the option to filter reviews based on how many reviews were left by each reviewer, but so far no one has managed to add this feature.

Now, when I want to let others know what I’m thinking about a service, product or business, I leave the review here.  Google picks it up, and the traffic that comes in can help pay for the review I posted.  Those who read this site regularly know I have a reputation for a certain level of quality.  People who visit the site searching for that item, service or business can poke around the site (and usually do) to see what I’m about.  The income is nice, and the visitors get a real point of view.

My two most recent reviews, for the Bosch Tassimo single-serve coffee machine and the Shark Duo EP661 stick vacuum are already receiving traffic from Google — within HOURS of me posting the reviews.  How can you beat that?  I’m helping people form buying decisions, and I’m increasing my reputation online.  Win, win, I’d say.

Of course, there are “pay for review” affiliate programs, like ReviewMe.com which I tried a few years ago.  They REQUIRE that you say you are paid for the review, though, so the reader can take your review with a grain of salt.  Otherwise, putting your reviews on your own site has many benefits and no downsides: you can increase traffic to your site, you can increase your income through advertising or affiliate links, and you can create a stronger reputation amongst your readers and casual visitors.

I see NO reason to continue to leave reviews at the big sites like Amazon.com and Yelp.com.  In 2009, I plan on reviewing 1-2 items, services or businesses PER DAY, just to build a cache of good reviews for me, and to help those who are actually interested in a real heartfelt review.  If you’re not reviewing things you witness in your life on your site, you’re missing out on some major benefits.

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