How can you tell genuine, trustworthy online reviews?

By Lars Hermes · 25 October 2026 · 3 min read

Magnifying glass over a row of rating stars
Contents
  1. How common are fake reviews?
  2. Seven warning signs
  3. Quick check
  4. What this means for our rankings
  5. Sources

Dentist, pizzeria or agency: before we hire someone, most of us read what others experienced. According to a Bitkom survey, 56 percent of online shoppers see customer reviews as an important help when deciding (2020). That is exactly why reviews get manipulated. The good news: bought and invented reviews follow patterns – and patterns can be learned.

How common are fake reviews?

More common than many think. In 2024 Google removed more than 240 million reviews worldwide, and Trustpilot about 4.5 million – roughly 7 percent of all reviews submitted there that year. In an EU-wide check of 223 major websites in 2022, consumer protection authorities concluded that at least 55 percent of them might breach EU consumer law because their reviews could be misleading. Platform filters keep improving, but some fakes always slip through.

Seven warning signs

1. Many reviews in a short time

Two or three reviews a week for months, then suddenly forty in one weekend? Waves like that rarely happen on their own. Sort the reviews by date and look for jumps.

2. Stars without substance

Five stars without a word, or one star with a blanket insult: neither tells you anything you can check. Real customers almost always mention something specific – a service, a name, a situation.

3. Interchangeable advertising language

“Highly recommended, great service, will come again” fits under any business. Bought reviews are often written in batches and stay generic. The more precisely an experience is described, the more credible it is.

4. Profiles without a history

A look at the reviewer’s profile pays off: is this their only review? Or did the account review ten businesses in five cities in one day? Both are typical patterns of fake accounts.

5. The same sentences, more than once

If unusual phrases or even the same typos show up in several reviews, they probably come from the same source.

6. A perfect average across very many reviews

No business pleases everyone. The Spiegel Research Center at Northwestern University found that purchase likelihood usually peaks at averages between 4.0 and 4.7 stars and drops again towards 5.0. A flawless average across hundreds of reviews often looks too good to be true.

7. Big differences between platforms

Perhaps the strongest signal: 4.9 stars on one platform but clearly weaker scores elsewhere? A business that only shines in one place may have helped itself there. That is why it pays to look across several platforms.

Quick check

Feature Likely genuine Likely fake
Timing spread evenly over months waves and sudden spikes
Text specific details, criticism too generic, superlatives only
Profile grown history accounts with a single review
Stars a mix with outliers almost only five stars
Platform comparison similar everywhere very different

A single signal proves nothing. When several come together, be careful. A tip from practice: read the three-star reviews on purpose. Fakers have no use for them, so they are often especially honest and nuanced.

What this means for our rankings

On wer-ist-der-beste.com the stars and review counts come from reviewfinder.org, which brings together reviews from several platforms. So you see the overall picture rather than a single platform, and outliers on one platform carry less weight.

Reviews are also only one criterion among several (see our rating criteria). An entry with only a few reviews is weighted more cautiously than one with many, so a handful of five-star reviews is not enough to climb to the top.

You will find all eight warning signs with examples and sources in my detailed article on reviewfinder.org: How to spot fake reviews: 8 warning signs that expose paid reviews.

Sources

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