I've worried for awhile now that Amazon wasn't doing enough to crack down on fake and purchased reviews of products listed on their site.
This seemed particularly rampant on small gadgets and kitchen items, home decor, and electronics. There were lots of 3rd party listings with reviews that were designed only to scam consumers and the
system.
Recently, though, Amazon made a change to what consumers see when they want to read the reviews of any given product.
Previously, if you wanted to see all reviews, you were presented literally with a screen showing ALL reviews.
Now, though, you see the following:
See all verified purchase reviews (newest first)
There is no option to see ALL reviews. You can't click a button and just page through every review written. Instead, you see ONLY verified purchase reviews.
You may have already noticed this but I've just caught on - don't know why I didn't see it before but in doing some research it looks like this change was made in October 2016.
Yay, Amazon!
I believe this change protects Amazon's brand and protecting that brand is important to the life of their affiliate program. If
they had let fake reviews impact their position in any way, consumers could have begun to lose confidence in buying through Amazon which would make conversions for affiliates more challenging
That doesn't mean the system can't be gamed so you still have to pay attention. Those who want to build up fake reviews will likely just figure out how to get their reviewers to show as an actual verified purchaser. However, it's a big win for affiliates and consumers!
Sincerely,
Erica Stone
