We've consolidated all the main review platforms into a mega-list of over 50 review sites.
You can download a copy of the original Google Spreadsheet for free, by clicking here
A word about our categories
We've broken down the platforms into a few key categories to make this easier to navigate
- Discoverability potential: The main idea here is to evaluate whether a business is likely to be discovered (i.e. first seen) through a review platform.
- Platform type: Open or closed, it basically determines whether the review platform owns the relationship with their reviewers
- Moderated: All platforms are moderated in some way, this attempts to measure how moderated they are, and whether reviews are moderated before being published
- Industry: We grouped review platforms into different categories, but most platforms can work for multiple categories
Evaluating a review platform's discoverability potential
If you've ever spoken to a performance marketer, you're probably familiar with the brand / non-brand split they usually apply on campaigns. Especially search-driven campaigns. The main idea is that brand searches are inherently very different intents to non-brand searches. For example, if someone googles "Slack reviews", they're evaluating Slack, and looking for reassurance, or a reason not to buy. But if they're typing instant messaging software, they're pretty explicitly in a benchmarking phase, higher up the funnel, at a stage where every brand wants to make the shortlist.On review platforms, discoverability can be:
- Search-driven – think of it as a keyword search like on google, except on the App Store or Play Store, where reviews are a ranking factor. The App Store & Play Store are good examples of search-driven, heavily review-influenced ranking algorithms.
- or Category-driven – this applies mostly to complex sales (software & B2B services mostly, construction, ...) where people might search for "meta keywords" and end up on a list of solutions, usually ranked by some sort of algorithm where reviews are also a ranking factor. Capterra and Clutch are good examples of category-driven, heavily review-influenced algorithms.
While most review platforms have pretty rudimentary algorithms that can easily be manipulated, reviews are a critical component of the ranking factors on a few review sites.To evaluate the discoverability potential of a review platform, we obviously looked at the platform's overall traffic (which is a good proxy potential traffic when listing a product on that platform), and the type of traffic. Some platforms might have category pages, but rely vastly on brand traffic. Trustpilot is a good example of a platform that has almost exclusively brand traffic.For more information on choosing the right review platform depending on your objectives, here are a few of our posts on the topic:
- Review Management 101 – How to make the most of your customer reviews
- How to make the most of Gartner's review sites
- G2 VS Capterra – When you should prioritize what platform
- How to rank #1 on G2 – Deepdive into G2's ranking factors
- Trustpilot VS Google Reviews – How to know which ones you need
Platform type: Closed review platforms VS Open review platforms
The difference here is pretty basic, but it is extremely important and has a great many consequences.
An open review platform is a platform where anyone can review your product or business. Anyone can claim they had an experience, and then post a review. These platforms often fight considerable review fraud, and need to put comprehensive moderation processes in place to maintain visitor trust.
A closed review platform is a platform where only people who are verified customers can drop a review. The million dollar question here is how is that verified.
Amazon shows both verified buyers (purchase is made on Amazon by the same account that's dropping a review) & unverified buyers, and kind of warns users about it. G2 and Gartner usually verify reviewers have an account at the software company they're reviewing with a dashboard screenshot. But there are many workarounds, and they also seem to get it wrong in a lot of cases. In our spreadsheet, whenever the platform is in-between the reviewer's business relationship with the business and they only allowed verified customers to leave a review, we considered the platform Closed. Otherwise, we considered the platform open.
From a marketer's perspective, whether a platform is open or closed essentially dictates who owns the relationship with the reviewer. Generally speaking, it is very much in every vendor's interest to own that relationship.
Moderated
The very vast majority of platforms are moderated in some way shape or form. The idea behind this attribute is just to signal the intensity of moderation, and whether the platform are effectively working on removing fake reviews before they are posted, or simply provide a way to contest reviews.In some cases, like the Chrome Extensions store, google explicitly states they do not validate reviews. In other cases, we relied on our experience with those platforms.
Industry
While some review platforms are meant to be helpful across all industries, readers realistically expect different feedback about a restaurant and a data modeling agency. We've grouped review platforms into categories that seemed to encapsulate most of the items being reviewed on those platforms, and the audience they seem to address in majority. You can download a copy of the original Google Spreadsheet for free, by clicking here
