[OC] Why is this 4.8 star restaurant tasting like 2.8 stars? (hint: Google is *filled* with fake reviews!)
Posted by Directive31
![[OC] Why is this 4.8 star restaurant tasting like 2.8 stars? (hint: Google is *filled* with fake reviews!)](https://www.byteseu.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/kief1rmonqff1-1024x711.png "[OC] Why is this 4.8 star restaurant tasting like 2.8 stars? (hint: Google is *filled* with fake reviews!)")
[OC] Why is this 4.8 star restaurant tasting like 2.8 stars? (hint: Google is *filled* with fake reviews!)
Posted by Directive31
14 Comments
**Best part**: some restaurants **BUY low score reviews** (like 0 stars) on competitors’ restaurants pages! Very apparent in the data posted in the full article here: [https://www.bigeatersushi.com/stop-getting-fooled-by-4-star-tourist-traps/](https://www.bigeatersushi.com/stop-getting-fooled-by-4-star-tourist-traps/)
No wonder why it’s so darn hard to find good spots (good ones can be bad and bad ones can be good.. total f*ckery).
I have 0 trust on Google reviews
There are visualizations in the linked article that are way better than this janky pie chart! Why, OP, why??
Google was giving out free Google Drive space just for leaving a rating when they originally launched this.
People were just leaving random 5 star ratings in exchange for free Google Drive space and Google was not verifying a single thing.
It’s all garbage content. Totally worthless. Oh but it has 4.75 stars……..!
The italian restaurant in my college town had really high reviews and was just ok. I always thought it was because of course small town hicks would think mediocre italian is michelin star. Maybe it’s all just fake, damn.
Found this out the hard way when buying a car. 2.5k good reviews 4.7 stars wcgw.
I’ve definitely seen a ton of fake reviews on yelp. Interesting article though, Scott. Or is it Sott?
This visualization doesn’t seem to answer that at all. I can sort of infer what might be the cause, but there is no more objective measure of food quality vs review score based on authority or anything. Seems like a lot is missing from this visualization to actually make meaningful choices based on it.
Now create an app that analyse the authority index for reviews on restaurants
Amazing 🙂 how complicated was it to run your statistics? Did you manage to automate most of it? Have you considered sharing your process and code? I would obviously love to run that on all the incredibly over rated restaurants of my town ^^
Another huge problem, at least in Germany, is them having legitimate negative reviews removed by Google under the justification of them being “defamation”. There’s slimy lawyers who will approach you offering that as a service if you have a business that has Google reviews.
Ever notice that on Skip, literally no restaurants have low ratings? Apparently everything is an 8 or a 9 these days.
Seems like it’s your article and content, that’s pretty good.
Are you sharing the code? I’d like to play with it in my current city. It adds a challenge of non-English speaking country, although LLM probably can handle that easily.
Now do a colourblind-friendly version