Positive online consumer reviews may be fakes

You can find a review on just about everything these days. From dating to home improvement, consumers are constantly sharing their opinions all over the internet. But how do you know which reviews you can trust?

Angie's List recommends you ask the following questions to get the most value from online review sites:

Research the sites to determine how they work:
- Are reviews anonymous?
- Are reviews edited by the site or allowed to stand as the reviewer wrote them?
- Does the site have a check and balance system to ensure the reviews are truthful and fair?

Review the reviewers:
- Look for companies that have multiple reviews, especially on anonymous review sites, so you get a wide opinion base.
- Do many of the reports seem very much alike, as if they may have been form letters submitted by someone trying to stack the deck?
- Are all the reviews overwhelmingly positive that they sound too good to be true?

Cast a wide net:
- Don’t rely on just one resource, especially for high dollar major projects. - Check a variety of online sites and regulatory sites, like your state attorney general, to get a wide opinion base.
- Check with friends, family and neighbors.
- Trust your instincts.

The FTC recently adopted guidelines companies are to follow when it comes to blogging - and bloggers are now supposed to disclose when they’re reviewing a product they’ve been given by the company.