2.7.2 Sources of Reputation Information

Look for information written by a person, not statistics or other machine-compiled information. News articles, Wikipedia articles, blog posts, magazine articles, forum discussions, and ratings from independent organizations can all be sources of reputation information. Look for independent, credible sources of information.

Sometimes, you will find information about a website which is not related to its reputation. For example, pages with information about Internet traffic to the website do not provide evidence of positive or negative reputation. You can ignore this information since it's not helpful for Page Quality rating.

2.7.3 Customer Reviews of Stores/Businesses

Customer reviews can be helpful for assessing the reputation of a store or business. However, you should interpret these reviews with care, particularly if there are only a few. Be skeptical of both positive and negative user reviews. Anyone can write them, including the creator of the website or someone the store or business hires for this purpose. See here for a New York Times article on fake reviews and here for a Guardian article on fake reviews.

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When interpreting customer reviews, try to find as many as possible. Any store or website can get a few negative reviews. This is completely normal and expected. Large stores and companies have thousands of reviews and most receive some negative ones.

It is also important to read the reviews because the content of the reviews matter, not just the number. Credible, convincing reports of fraud and financial wrongdoing is evidence of extremely negative reputation. A single encounter with a rude clerk or the delayed receipt of a single package should not be considered negative reputation information. Please use your judgment.

2.7.4 How to Search for Reputation Information

Here is how to research the reputation of the website:

1. Identify the “homepage” of the website. For example, for the IBM website, ibm.com is the homepage.

2. Using ibm.com as an example, try one or more of the following searches on Google:

• [ibm -site:ibm.com]: A search for IBM which excludes pages on ibm.com.

• [“ibm.com” -site:ibm.com]: A search for “ibm.com” which excludes pages on ibm.com.

• [ibm reviews -site:ibm.com] A search for reviews of IBM which excludes pages on ibm.com.

• [“ibm.com” reviews -site:ibm.com]: A search for reviews of “ibm.com” which excludes pages on ibm.com.

3. Look for articles, reviews, forum posts, discussions, etc. written by people about the website. For businesses, there are many sources of reputation information and reviews. Here are some examples: Yelp, Better Business Bureau (a nonprofit organization that focuses on the trustworthiness of businesses and charities), Amazon, and Google Product Search. You can try searching on specific sites to find reviews. For example, you can try [ibm site:bbb.org] or [“ibm.com” site:bbb.org].

Note: You will sometimes find high ratings on the Better Business Bureau (BBB) website because there is very little data on the business, not because the business has a positive reputation. However, very low ratings on BBB are usually the result of multiple unresolved complaints. Please consider very low ratings on the BBB site to be evidence for a negative reputation.

4. See if there is a Wikipedia article or news article from a well-known news site. Wikipedia can be a good source of information about companies and organizations. For example, try [ibm site:en.wikipedia.org] or [“ibm.com” site:en.wikipedia.org]. News articles and Wikipedia articles can help you learn about a company and may include information specific to reputation, such as awards and other forms of recognition. Note that some Wikipedia articles include a message warning users that there are disagreements on some of the content, or that the content may be outdated. This may be an indication that additional research is necessary.

Here are some examples of reputation information:

	Website		Reputation Information About the Site		Description
			Search results for [annualcreditreport.com		Positive reputation information: Users in the U.S. can
			-site:annualcreditreport.com]
					obtain free credit reports on this website by providing their
	annualcreditreport.com		Wikipedia article about		Social Security Number. Notice that this Wikipedia article
			annualcreditreport.com		tells us that “AnnualCreditReport.com is the only federally
					mandated and authorized source for obtaining a free credit
			Wall Street Journal article about		report.”
			annualcreditreport.com

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	Website		Reputation Information About the Site			Description
			Search results for [clevelandclinic.org]			Positive reputation information: According to Wikipedia,
			Wikipedia article about clevelandclinic.org			the Cleveland Clinic “is currently regarded as one of the top
	clevelandclinic.org					4 hospitals in the United States as rated by U.S. News &
						World Report,” which you will also find in the article on the
			US News & World Report article about the			best hospitals in the U.S. Users can trust medical
			best hospitals in the U.S.			information on this website.
			Search results for [csmonitor.com -			Positive reputation information: Notice the highlighted
						section in the Wikipedia article about The Christian Science
			site:csmonitor.com]
	csmonitor.com					Monitor newspaper, which tells us that the newspaper has
			Wikipedia article about The Christian			won seven Pulitzer Prize awards. From this information, we
						can infer that the csmonitor.com website has a positive
			Science Monitor
						reputation.
			Search results for [llbean.com reviews –
			site:llbean.com]
			LL Bean positive reviews 1			Positive reputation information: From the numerous
	llbean.com					positive reviews, we can infer that llbean.com has a positive
			LL Bean positive reviews 2			reputation.
			LL Bean positive reviews 3
						Positive reputation information: We learn in the Wikipedia
						article that “Kernel.org is a main repository of source code
			Search results for [kernel.org –			for the Linux kernel, the base of the popular Linux operating
	kernel.org		site:kernel.org]			system. It makes all versions of the source code available
						to all users. It also hosts various other projects, like Google
			Wikipedia article about kernel.org			Android. The main purpose of the site is to host a repository
						for Linux kernel developers and maintainers of Linux
						distributions.”
			Search to find reputation information
			Search to find reviews			Extremely negative reputation information: This business
	Site selling children’s		BBB negative review		has a BBB rating of F. There is a news article about
					financial fraud. There are many reviews on websites
	jungle gym
			TrustLink negative reviews		describing users sending money and not receiving anything.
			Negative news article
			Search to find reputation information
	Site selling products		BBB page			Extremely negative/malicious reputation information:
	related to eyewear					This website engaged in criminal behavior such as
			Wikipedia article			physically threatening users.
			New York Times article

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	Website		Reputation Information About the Site	Description
			Search to find scams related this
			organization
	Organization serving		Negative review 1	Extremely negative reputation information: There are
				many detailed negative articles on news sites and charity
	the hospitalized
			Negative review 2	watchdog sites about this organization describing fraud and
	veteran community
				financial mishandling.
			Negative review 3
			Negative review 4