Ok and what stops from a competitor from
Ok and what stops from a competitor from paying for $0.50 of results and leaving a bad review
12 Replies
Honestly, nothing. Whatever mechanisms we put in place, we won't be able to stop a determined competitor from gaming the system. I can understand your concerns, so if you have examples of any integrated review systems that are effective at doing this, please share them so we can learn from them. There's a reason that so many companies outsource their reviews to Trustpilot (who have their entire business built around review verification).
In the meantime, if there is a review that you are concerned is a fraudulent review from a competitor, please report it. Some of our engineers are manually reviewing the reports as they come in so we really do investigate each case individually.
How can you report anonymous reviews? They don’t even show up.
I mean, people who leave a one star rating with no comments
All your reviews and ratings should be visible under the Reviews tab in the Actor settings
I don’t know what to tell you but it’s not visible. 8 reviews only the 7 are visible
1 star review completely hidden.
Can you share your Actor with me please so I can take a look?
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I haven't had much of a chance to dig into it but it looks like it's a rating rather than a review, which is why you can't report it for removal.
Well wasn't that my original point ...
Were you able to find out about that review?
I feel its a little manipulative to be able to put reviews anonymously like that
So here is the progress I have made on that conversation:
When our team was deciding the mechanics of the review system, they looked at other popular review systems. They found that most allow for anonymous ratings, as well as leaving reviews without proving they used the product (e.g. Google Maps/Business, Amazon). They implemented similar mechanics, but to support creators they also implemented a scoring system that weights the ratings and reviews in favour of most-recent reviewers who have run the Actor.
This system is itself always open to review but so far they have found that except for cases with mass-spamming of fraudulent reviews, it is holding up pretty well.
Does that mean you will always be happy with the ratings you receive? No, of course not. Nobody likes a bad review (trust me, I used to be a restaurant manager), but we are doing our best to implement features that prompt your happy customers to leave reviews (e.g. after a 2nd successful run, the customer is prompted in the console to leave a review).
We want the system to be fair to everyone, which includes being fair to customers who want to see fair reviews. I'm sure you can understand this is a tricky balance to strike, so we do truly value the continued input from the community. Please keep telling us what is not working for you. We will continue to listen and discuss and tweak as we go. I am well aware of how frustrating the low scores can be, so please trust that we are doing our best to balance your frustrations with the interests of your customers and the integrity of Apify Store. Thank you for being part of the conversation 🫶