In addition to being wary of gushing reviews of hotels/motels, be careful about ones that are extremely negative. I remember how recently a Wells, Maine motel was implicated in bashing one or more competitors online under the pretext of being a customer.
More on the problem here.
And some tips on how to spot fake reviews.
This might be true in some instances, but I’ve also seen this claim used to put down review sites that actually feature a high percentage of positive reviews.
Sometimes reviews aren’t 100% truthful, either. Whenever you see someone who absolutely gushes about everything or absolutely finds fault with everything, it tends to stick out.
Hotel staff are not above posting fake reviews for either themselves or their competitors.
Further, some people get a bee in their bonnet about one thing or another, and then decide “I want to hurt this hotel” and write a scathing review that isn’t fair or impartial. Because some clerk gave them a weird look when they freaked out about some phantom odor, now everything else has to be bad. Because people are so crazy, I tend to take 1 stars with a lot of criticism pretty much anytime on TripAdvisor, unless it says “bedbugs” or something really shocking, in the description.
Before I take one review too seriously, I check: is it a one-off? Automatic suspicion, big time. Is it a person who tends to leave all 5 star or 1 star reviews? Automatic suspicion.
Look at the trend, and look at what they write. People on travel sites write 1/5 star reviews that make me laugh because of how petty they are. I read through a bunch for a resort my sister was using for her honeymoon, and it was ridiculous. One of the complaints was that they put up a sign on a couple’s door saying “Happy Honeymoon!” and the bride was pissed because the trip was a combined destination wedding and honeymoon. So, because she wasn’t married when the sign was posted at their arrival, she was INCREDIBLY OFFENDED. And then, there was a crack in the base of one of the walls in her room! It didn’t affect anything except her brain, because now the room wasn’t PERFECT for her special day. Seriously.
Yes, I’m sure there are legitimate 1-star experiences out there. I’ve read some horror stories, and if you see a whole bunch of 1s in a row, consider it. But I’ve found that pretty much any business on Earth, given enough reviews, will have some 5 stars and some 1 stars, no matter its quality.