I can count on my fingers how many times I’ve been to a restaurant and been asked to write an online review. I can’t count how many times I’ve been told by a trusted Google search company that my review was written by a professional. There are always exceptions, though.
I don’t know about you, but if the restaurant has been serving a meal for a few hours when I ask about their food, I tend to think they are going to be a little bit more accommodating of my request if I ask about their service than when I want to order something. I think it’s because I tend to be a little more patient when I’m ordering something that I think I can handle.
I have to admit that I have also been told by Google that my reviews are written by a professional. That being said, when I have been told the restaurant is a trusted business and I have been given a rating, I tend to trust their reviews, because I already know that they are honest and not trying to sell me something I can’t handle.
I am very very glad that Google has a website that gives both positive and negative reviews on restaurants.
When you’re ordering something that you don’t know the quality of, or the price of, you may feel like you’re selling yourself short. But when you can read the reviews on Google and compare them to the reviews on websites like Yelp and TripAdvisor, and know that those websites are trustworthy, you can get a good idea of the quality of the food/service you’re ordering.
Most search engines also give reviews, but there are a few that have a more negative bias towards restaurants. Yelp is one of them, with negative reviews on lots of restaurants and only a few being positive. TripAdvisor has a large negative bias towards restaurants, especially when it comes to the price of places. Google has a positive bias, which is why we recommend it.
Google is a search engine, and they are, by nature, biased towards good and trustworthy sites. While Google and other search engines give high quality reviews, they also tend to give reviews that are focused on other things, like how nice the restaurant is rather than looking at the quality of the food. Yelp and TripAdvisor are like that.
Of course, Yelp and TripAdvisor are excellent sites, but they only give reviews of restaurants and hotels. We focus on restaurants and hotels because it’s easier to tell the difference between a great restaurant and a horrible one. For example, a great restaurant’s reviews are easier to read, and we recommend them.
If we had to choose, however, our favorite websites for reviews are TripAdvisor and Trustpilot. Both are excellent for reviewing hotels, but only TripAdvisor focuses on restaurants, which makes the review easier to understand and the review more of a “thank you to the reviewer” instead of a review. TripAdvisor also allows for reviews to be filtered by category, so you can find reviews of things like night clubs and cafes.
We also recommend Google Reviews, Yelp and Citysearch (we’re fans of OpenTable too), and the New York Times. These websites are not in any way affiliated with TripAdvisor, we just enjoy their reviews.