No. Fakespot does not review any products or companies. We only grade the product reviews.

Fakespot uses numerous technologies to evaluate the authenticity of reviews. The primary criteria are (1) English language pattern recognition, (2) the profile of the reviewer and (3) correlation with other reviewer data. Our algorithm uses machine learning to constantly improve itself by looking at profile clusters, sentiment analysis and cluster correlation. We use artificial intelligence that has been trained to pick up on patterns. The more data that flows into the system, the better the system gets at the detecting fakes.

No. The algorithms run through multiple tests to determine if a review is authentic or not. It’s rarely just a key word that sets off the alarm, it is a pattern of usage, or the repetition of certain words. Linguistics play a huge part in every analysis, but it is far more complex than just looking for certain keywords.

Amazon™, TripAdvisor™, Walmart™, and Yelp™. We will soon support other platforms, so keep an eye out as we add more!

Yes, Fakespot currently supports Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com.au and Amazon.in.

On Amazon, when the system associates a product review with a product purchase, that review is from a "verified purchaser". Reviews from a verified purchase tend to be reliable (please see the next question below), since Amazon has already confirmed an actual purchase of the product being reviewed. On the flip side, if an Amazon review is not from a “verified purchaser” there is no way of knowing for sure if the reviewer purchased or even used the product. While it is possible that a reviewer could have purchased the product elsewhere and left a review on Amazon at a later date, without purchase verification, it is impossible to tell. In our opinion, dishonesty is likely when an Amazon review is not associated with a verified purchase.

In most cases, verified purchaser reviews are reliable when the review is coming from a consumer who actually purchased the product and did not receive it as part of a promotional campaign. Our system will flag verified purchaser reviews that were left as part of a promotional campaign because these are not real consumers spending their own money. In our opinion, the most trustworthy reviews come from consumers who actually purchase the product with their own money and leave real feedback on the quality of the product and shopping experience.

Amazon Vine Reviews are flagged because we believe the Amazon Vine program is flawed and opaque.

To participate in Amazon Vine, sellers pay anywhere from $2,500 to $7,500 per product and provide free products. So, it's a pay-for-review program administered by Amazon itself. It’s also not clear how many sellers participate, nor is it clear how many products are sent out for reviews. Amazon even uses the Vine program to promote its own products.

For Vine reviewers, it is an invite-only program and participants are supposedly chosen at random by Amazon to join the program. All Vine reviewers get free products to review. It's essentially a reviews club run by Amazon, for Amazon customers, promoting fee paying Amazon sellers (including Amazon itself). In addition, as an Amazon Vine reviewer, you can list a public email and receive more solicitations for reviews from vendors not in the Vine program. This means a Vine reviewer who leaves a lot of positive reviews is likely to be sought after by sellers who want positive reviews to promote their products.

You can find out more about the Amazon Vine here

We flag Discount Disclaimer reviews because these reviews are essentially paid reviews. Even if there is a disclaimer by the reviewer, all we know for sure is that (1) the reviewer did not pay full price for the product, and (2) the reviewer may not have even considered to buy the product if not for the promotion. Most reviewers who leave promotional reviews rarely leave only one promotional review. We have found that some discount reviewers manipulate their own Amazon reviewer profile by carefully sprinkling in one and two-star reviews in order to appear truly objective, which is why reviewers who leave promotional reviewers cannot be considered reliable. In fact, Amazon has recently banned discount disclaimer reviews altogether. You can read the new guidelines from Amazon here.