Sorry TripAdvisor (and all the other reviews sites) - it's just not going to happen

Today a member of staff received this in an email from TripAdvisor...

...just one (more) review. 

But it will never happen. Why not?

Because we - and just about everyone else on the planet - now only write reviews in one place, and it's not TripAdvisor, nor is it Yelp, or Trustpilot, or any of the other reviews sites. And why is that?

Because, like everything else on the web, it's about speed and simplicity now - remember 'app poker' when everyone was competing to see how many apps they could amass on their phones? Well, now we are proud of just how few apps we have. 

Of course there will be the die-hards; they will still write reviews all over the web, and we will all use TripAdvisor now and again - when we cannot find what we need on...

But, for the most part, if we want a restaurant, we will do this...

And this for a hotel...

And this for a lawyer...

And this for an estate agent...

And this for a plumber (how great is that 'top rated' button - unless, of course, your business has devoted all its efforts to getting reviews to an independent reviews site instead of Google?)...

And the future for the reviews sites? Well, we will let the share prices of the only two currently quoted on a stock market answer that question...

TripAdvisor down from a high of $105 in 2014 and Yelp down from $97 over virtually the same time scale (when the underlying stock-market rose by 50%).


Further reading...

Before you - and your business - plunge headlong into getting Google reviews, just pause for ten minutes and read these two articles; doing so may save you a lot of effort (and even pain) in the long run...

• Remember that you cannot 'choose' which of your customers write a review - if you invite one you must allow them all to do so. Why? Because it would be misleading to do otherwise and it's the law. Read about the CMA regulations here.

• To give you the confidence to allow all your customers to write reviews you will need a moderated review management system. This will allow you to do your very best to ensure that factually inaccurate or potentially misleading reviews don't see the light of day (and it's just as popular with reviewers and consumers as it is with businesses). Read all about HelpHound's moderation system here (it has the added benefit of displaying reviews on your own site).