A review site is a

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

on which reviews can be posted about people, businesses, products, or services. These sites may use

Web 2.0 Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, and ...

techniques to gather reviews from site users or may employ professional writers to author reviews on the topic of concern for the site. Early examples of review sites included ConsumerDemocracy.com, Complaints.com, planetfeedback.com, and

Epinions.com Epinions.com was a general consumer review site established in 1999. Epinions was acquired in 2003 by DealTime, later Shopping.com, which was acquired by eBay in 2005. Epinions users could access reviews about a variety of items. On 25 March 2014 ...

Business models

Review sites are generally supported by advertising. Some business review sites may also allow businesses to pay for enhanced listings, which do not affect the reviews and ratings. Product review sites may be supported by providing affiliate links to the websites that sell the reviewed items, which pay the site on a per-click or per-sale basis. With the growing popularity of affiliate programs on the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

, a new sort of review site has emerged: the affiliate product review site. This type of site is usually professionally designed and written to maximize conversions, and is used by e-commerce marketers. It is often based on a

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

platform like

WordPress WordPress (WP or WordPress.org) is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) written in hypertext preprocessor language and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database with supported HTTPS. Features include a plugin architecture ...

Squarespace Squarespace, Inc. is an American website building and hosting company which is based in New York City, USA. It provides software as a service for website building and hosting, and allows users to use pre-built website templates and drag-and-drop ...

, has a privacy and contact page to help with

SEO Seo or SEO may refer to: * Search engine optimization, the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines Organisations * SEO Economic Research, a scientific institute * Spanish Ornithological Society (''Socied ...

, and has commenting and interactivity turned off. It will also have an e-mail gathering device in the form of an

opt-in Opt-in email is a term used when someone is not initially added to an emailing list and is instead given the option to join the emailing list. Typically, this is some sort of mailing list, newsletter, or advertising. Opt-out emails do not ask ...

, or

drop-down list A drop-down list (abbreviated drop-down, or DDL; also known as a drop-down menu, drop menu, pull-down list, picklist) is a graphical control element, similar to a list box, that allows the user to choose one value from a list. When a drop-dow ...

to help the aspiring

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...

business person build an

e-mail list A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is re ...

to market to. Because of the specialized marketing thrust of this type of website, the reviews are not always seen to be objective by consumers. Because of this, the FTC has provided several guidelines requiring publishers to disclose when they benefit monetarily from the content in the form of advertising, affiliate marketing, etc.

Impact

Studies by independent research groups like

Forrester Research Forrester is a research and advisory company that offers a variety of services including research, consulting, and events. Forrester has nine North America locations: Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York, New York; San Francisco, California; McL ...

, comScore, The Kelsey Group, and the Word of Mouth Marketing Association show that rating and review sites influence consumer shopping behavior. In an academic study published in 2008, empirical results demonstrated that the number of online user reviews is a good indicator of the intensity of underlying word-of-mouth effect and increase awareness.

Anonymity

Originally, reviews were generally anonymous, and in many countries, review sites often have policies that preclude the release of any identifying information without a court order. According to Kurt Opsahl, a staff attorney for the

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...

(EFF), anonymity of reviewers is important. Reviewers are always required to provide an email address and are often encouraged to use their real name. Yelp also requires a photo of the reviewer.

Rating site

A rating site (commonly known as a rate-me site) is a

designed for

users Ancient Egyptian roles * User (ancient Egyptian official), an ancient Egyptian nomarch (governor) of the Eighth Dynasty * Useramen, an ancient Egyptian vizier also called "User" Other uses * User (computing), a person (or software) using an ...

to vote, rate people,

content Content or contents may refer to: Media * Content (media), information or experience provided to audience or end-users by publishers or media producers ** Content industry, an umbrella term that encompasses companies owning and providing mas ...

, or other things. Rating sites can range from tangible to non-tangible attributes, but most commonly, rating sites are based around physical appearances such as body parts, voice, personality, etc. They may also be devoted to the subjects' occupational ability, for example teachers, professors, lawyers, doctors, etc. However, these days, there are no limitations to what a rating site can be or can't be. Rating sites can typically be on anything a user can think of.

Features

Rating sites typically show a series of images (or other content) in random fashion, or chosen by computer algorithm, instead of allowing users to choose. Users are given a choice of rating or assessment, which is generally done quickly and without great deliberation. Users score items on a scale of 1 to 10, yes or no. Others, such as BabeVsBabe.com, ask users to choose between two pictures. Typically, the site gives instant feedback in terms of the item's running score, or the percentage of other users who agree with the assessment. Rating sites sometimes offer aggregate statistics or "best" and "worst" lists. Most allow users to submit their own image, sample, or other relevant content for others to rate. Some require the submission as a condition of membership. Rating sites usually provide some features of

social network service A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...

s and

online communities An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members interact with each other primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, online communities may fe ...

such as

discussion forums An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...

messaging A message is a discrete unit of communication intended by the source for consumption by some recipient or group of recipients. A message may be delivered by various means, including courier, telegraphy, carrier pigeon and electronic bus. ...

, and

private messaging In computing, a private message, personal message, or direct message (abbreviated as PM or DM) refers to a private communication sent or received by a user of a private communication channel on any given platform. Unlike public posts, PMs are only ...

. Some function as a form of

dating service Dating is a stage of romantic relationships in which two individuals engage in an activity together, most often with the intention of evaluating each other's suitability as a partner in a future intimate relationship. It falls into the categor ...

, in that for a fee they allow users to contact other users. Many social networks and other sites include rating features. For example, MySpace and TradePics have optional "rank" features for users to be rated by other users.

Subject matter

One category of rating sites, such as

Hot or Not Hot or Not, currently rebranded as Chat & Date, is a rating site that allowed users to rate the attractiveness of photos submitted voluntarily by others. The site offered a matchmaking engine called 'Meet Me' and an extended profile feature ca ...

or HotFlation, is devoted to rating contributors' physical attractiveness. Other looks-based rating sites include RateMyFace.com (an early site, launched in the Summer of 1999) and NameMyVote, which asks users to guess a person's political party based on their looks. Some sites are devoted to rating the appearance of pets (e.g. kittenwar.com, petsinclothes.com, and meormypet.com). Another class allows users to rate short video or music clips. One variant, a "

Darwinian poetry Darwinian Poetry was a web project'Darwinian poetry' seeks to evolve verse.

" site, allows users to compare two samples of entirely computer-generated poetry using a

Condorcet method A Condorcet method (; ) is an election method that elects the candidate who wins a majority of the vote in every head-to-head election against each of the other candidates, that is, a candidate preferred by more voters than any others, whenever ...

. Successful poems "mate" to produce poems of ever-increasing appeal. Yet others are devoted to disliked men (DoucheBagAlert),

bowel movement Defecation (or defaecation) follows digestion, and is a necessary process by which organisms eliminate a solid, semisolid, or liquid waste material known as feces from the digestive tract via the anus. The act has a variety of names ranging fro ...

s (ratemypoo.com), unsigned bands (RateBandsOnline.com), politics (RateMyTory.Com), nightclubs, business professionals, clothes, cars, and many other subjects. When rating sites are dedicated to rating products (epinions.com), brands (brandmojo.org), services, or businesses rather than to rating people (i-rate.me), and are used for more serious or well thought-out ratings, they tend to be called review sites, although the distinction is not exact.

History

The popularity of rating people and their abilities on a scale, such as 1–10, traces back to at least the late 20th century, and the algorithms for aggregating quantitative rating scores far earlier than that. The 1979 film '' 10'' is an example of this. The title derives from a rating system

Dudley Moore Dudley Stuart John Moore CBE (19 April 193527 March 2002) was an English actor, comedian, musician and composer. Moore first came to prominence in the UK as a leading figure in the British satire boom of the 1960s. He was one of the four writ ...

uses to grade women based upon

beauty Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes these objects pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, together with art and taste, is the main subject of aesthetics, o ...

, with a 10 being the epitome of attractiveness. The notion of a "perfect ten" came into common usage as a result of this film. In the film, Moore rates

Bo Derek Bo Derek (born Mary Cathleen Collins, November 20, 1956) is an American actress and model. Her breakthrough film role was in the romantic comedy '' 10'' (1979). Her first husband John Derek directed her in '' Fantasies''; '' Tarzan, the Ape Man ...

an "11". In 1990, one of the first computer-based photographic attractiveness rating studies was conducted. During this year psychologists J. H. Langlois and L. A. Roggman examined whether facial attractiveness was linked to geometric averageness. To test their hypothesis, they selected photographs of 192 male and female Caucasian faces; each of which was computer scanned and digitized. They then made computer-processed composites of each image, as 2-, 4-, 8-, 16-, and 32-face composites. The individual and composite faces were then rated for attractiveness by 300 judges on a 5-point

Likert scale A Likert scale ( , commonly mispronounced as ) is a psychometric scale commonly involved in research that employs questionnaires. It is the most widely used approach to scaling responses in survey research, such that the term (or more fully the ...

(1 = very unattractive, 5 = very attractive). The 32-composite face was the most visually attractive of all the faces. Subsequent studies were done on a 10-point scale. In 1992, '' Perfect 10'' magazine and video programming was launched by Xui, the original executive editor of ''

Spin Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning * Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis * Spin (propaganda), an intentionally b ...

'' magazine, to feature only women who would rank 10 for attractiveness. Julie Kruis, a swimsuit model, was the original

spokesmodel A promotional model is a model hired to drive consumer demand for a product, service, brand, or concept by directly interacting with potential customers. Most promotional models are conventionally attractive in physical appearance. They serve to m ...

. In 1996, Rasen created the first "''Perfect 10'' Model Search" at the Pure Platinum club near

Fort Lauderdale, Florida Fort Lauderdale () is a coastal city located in the U.S. state of Florida, north of Miami along the Atlantic Ocean. It is the county seat of and largest city in Broward County with a population of 182,760 at the 2020 census, making it the tenth ...

. His contests were broadcast on Network 1, a domestic C-band

satellite channel A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotop ...

. Other unrelated "Perfect 10" contests became popular throughout the 1990s. The first ratings sites started in 1999, with RateMyFace.com (created by Michael Hussey) and TeacherRatings.com (created by John Swapceinski, re-launched with Hussey and further developed by Patrick Nagle as

RateMyProfessors RateMyProfessors.com (RMP) is a review site, founded in May 1999 by John Swapceinski, a software engineer from Menlo Park, California, which allows college and university students to assign ratings to professors and campuses of American, Canadi ...

). The most popular of all time, Hot or Not, was launched in October 2000. Hot or Not generated many spin-offs and imitators. There are now hundreds of such sites, and even meta-sites that categorize them all. The rating site concept has also been expanded to include Twitter and Facebook accounts that provide ratings, such as the humorous Twitter account

WeRateDogs WeRateDogs is a Twitter account that rates people's dogs with a humorous comment about the dog. The account was started in 2015 by college student Matt Nelson, and has received international media attention both for its popularity and for the atte ...

Criticism

Most review sites make little or no attempt to restrict postings, or to verify the information in the reviews. Critics point out that positive reviews are sometimes written by the businesses or individuals being reviewed, while negative reviews may be written by competitors, disgruntled employees, or anyone with a grudge against the business being reviewed. Some merchants also offer incentives for customers to review their products favorably, which skews reviews in their favor. So called

reputation management Reputation management, originally a public relations term, refers to the influencing, controlling, enhancing, or concealing of an individual's or group's reputation. The growth of the internet and social media led to growth of reputation managem ...

firms may also submit false positive reviews on behalf of businesses. In 2011,

RateMDs.com RateMDs.com is a free website allowing users to submit and read reviews of doctors, dentists, psychologists, urgent care centers, group practices, and hospitals. The site is free to use for both consumers and doctors. The site was originally la ...

and

Yelp Yelp Inc. is an American company that develops the Yelp.com website and the Yelp mobile app, which publish crowd-sourced reviews about businesses. It also operates Yelp Guest Manager, a table reservation service. It is headquartered in San Fra ...

detected dozens of positive reviews of doctors, submitted from the same IP addresses by a firm called Medical Justice. Furthermore, studies of research methodology have shown that in forums where people are able to post opinions publicly, group polarization often occurs, and the result is very positive comments, very negative comments, and little in between, meaning that those who would have been in the middle are either silent or pulled to one extreme or the other. Rating sites have a social feedback effect; some high school principals and administrators, for example, have begun to regularly monitor the status of their teaching staff via student controlled "rating sites". Some looks-based sites have come under criticism for promoting vanity and self-consciousness. Some claim they potentially expose users to

sexual predator A sexual predator is a person seen as obtaining or trying to obtain sexual contact with another person in a metaphorically "predatory" or abusive manner. Analogous to how a predator hunts down its prey, so the sexual predator is thought to "hunt" ...

s. Most rating sites suffer from similar

self-selection bias In statistics, self-selection bias arises in any situation in which individuals select themselves into a group, causing a biased sample with nonprobability sampling. It is commonly used to describe situations where the characteristics of the peop ...

since only highly motivated individuals devote their time to completing these rankings, and not a fair sampling of the population.

Response to criticism

Many operators of review sites acknowledge that reviews may not be objective, and that ratings may not be statistically valid. In some cases government authorities have taken legal actions against businesses that post false reviews. In 2009, the State of New York required Lifestyle Lift, a cosmetic surgery company, to pay $300,000 in fines.

References

External links

User-generated Review System
a 2008 United States patent which defines and deconstructs the concept of a review site