Can You Really Trust Online Reviews These Days?

How do you decide which sites to trust? Have you ever made or avoided a purchase purely based on what you read on a review site?

I trust word-of-mouth more than anything, but I’ll admit review websites help with the first impression. Google and TripAdvisor are decent, but niche directories often give more accurate insights. Still, I always wonder how many reviews are genuine and how many are just businesses boosting themselves or tanking their competitors.

I used to rely heavily on Yelp for restaurant and service recommendations until I had a few sketchy experiences. Now, I cross-check reviews on multiple platforms, including blogs, Reddit, and even niche Facebook groups. Some businesses seem to game the system, posting positive reviews in bulk or having negative ones mysteriously disappear. I came across https://yelp.pissedconsumer.com/customer-service.html while trying to understand how that works, and it opened my eyes to how review filtering can affect what we see.