Just came across this service that parses Yelp/ Tripadvisor reviews to give a grade of how real the reviews are, and identify potentially fake reviews.
Has anyone tried it, and have an opinion about its accuracy? I tried a few newer popular local restaurants, and the reviews are mostly solid.
I’ve looked at two local places. One where my instinct said they would be genuine reviews, the other where I was convinced many were fake. The website confirms both - the latter suggesting 40% may be fake.
I don’t have a real sense of what their software is actually doing but, on that small sample, it would seem to be doing it with some reasonable accuracy.
I post my restaurant reviews on HO and Tripadvisor (and, depending on the nature of the place, also send them to the Good Food Guide which is the UK’s premier restaurant guidebook). Now, that said, I don’t pay a lot of attention to most Tripadvisor reviews. They are generally of the nature where one post says a place is “the best ever” and the next one reports it as “awful”. And neither tell you anyting about what they actually ate. But, if I’m visiting a new area, Tripadvisor’s ratings can provide an initial list of places to consider further. For example, we’re shortly visiting New England and my “long list” of places came from a combination of HO, Tripadvisor and Chowhound. But the creation of the shortlist was really just from looking at the online menus and deciding we liked the look of it - so long as there was not a raft of negative Tripadvisor reviews. Perhaps needless to say, I discount Tripadvisor reviews from anyone making their first post - particularly those who start out with something along the lines of “I’ve eaten in restaurants across the world and this is the best ever”. Well, matey, why didnt you review some of them?
Interesting site. Like @Harters I looked at two local places–one relatively new where we ate once and had a dismal meal, and one established local favorite. I was actually surprised that the new restaurant’s Yelp reviews were found to be 80% accurate as its reviews are all over the map; perhaps the restaurant really is hit or miss.
The established place was 90% accurate. Interestingly, it identifies the unreliable reviewers. One I would not have suspected as it mentions the falafel and pizza. Another I would have dismissed immediately as it identifies the restaurant as his go-to sushi spot–sushi is not on this Mediterranean restaurant’s menu 
