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Using reviews, Sitejabber connects customers with great small businesses from around the world. Since 2007, over 140,000 businesses have been reviewed by the community and over 200 million people have used those reviews to find great businesses. Anyone can write a review and any business can register.
Check out our Review Guidelines for advice on how to write a helpful review.
The easiest way to discover your friends’ reviews or to share reviews with your friends is to log in via Facebook Connect.
Contributor Levels indicate how active a user is in helping others. Each user’s contributions are measured in points which are accumulated as the user helps the community. The following levels can be achieved:
Contribution points allow users to reach new Contributor Levels and show how engaged they are in helping the community. Points are earned according to the following schedule:
The total rating of any business is a weighted average of individual ratings, with 50% of the weighting coming from the average rating of all reviews, 25% of the weighting coming from an average of all reviews written in the last 12 months, and 25% of the weighting coming from an average of all reviews written in the last month. Should the 12-month or 1-month weighting periods be without reviews, that period is assigned an “average” rating (e.g. 3 stars) in the weighting.
This rating system was put into place to reflect the principle that more recent reviews are more valuable to consumers than older ones. The system was also created in response to consumer demand that ratings ought to reflect the most recent practices of a business, and business demand that improvements to service should be more accurately reflected in ratings. This system has been successfully rolled out to the over 50,000 businesses reviewed on Sitejabber.
Rarely. Users may remove their own reviews of their own accord (they can do this by visiting their profile page and clicking on the "Remove review" link underneath their review). Occasionally our Support Team will remove a review if it violates our Terms of Service or Review Guidelines. Additional reviews are not removed but may be filtered (see below).
Consumers have the right to share their honest opinions about a business’s products, services or conduct. Businesses that threaten reviewers or offer compensation in exchange for review removal may be in violation of the Consumer Review Fairness Act (CRFA), which is enforced by the Federal Trade Commission and state Attorneys General. If a company forces you to remove your review in order to receive a refund or exchange, keep in mind that you can always republish or write another review after your issue has been resolved. You can also report these incidents to compliance@sitejabber.com
Users may update or edit their reviews by visiting their profile page and clicking on the "Write update" or "Edit review" link underneath their review. Writing an update will preserve the original review and show the new updated review above it, which will help consumers understand why the review was updated. Editing a review will overwrite the original review and should be used primarily for correcting mistakes.
You can delete your Sitejabber user profile at any time by visiting your account settings. Deleting your Sitejabber user profile will permanently remove your individual user account, as well as all the reviews and contributions you have submitted.
In an effort to show consumers only the most relevant reviews, in 2010 Sitejabber introduced a Review Filter. The filter uses an algorithm that attempts to display to users only the most relevant content by filtering certain reviews. Reasons reviews might be filtered include: suspected solicited reviews in violation of our terms of service, suspected site-promotion spam (positive reviews), suspected competitor spam (negative reviews), language use, irrelevant content, and other terms of service violations. The same filter and algorithm is applied to every review. The filter isn’t perfect, but it is dynamic and always learning. As a result, you may see reviews move in and out of the filter as the filter learns more about the trustworthiness of the reviews of a particular site. The filter pulls from a wide range of data and is intentionally difficult to decipher to avoid gaming. If your review has been filtered, don’t worry, it hasn’t been deleted. As you continue to demonstrate your trustworthiness and contribute to the community, your reviews will likely no longer be filtered.
Sitejabber takes fake reviews very seriously and does four important things to prevent them:
Sitejabber takes review fraud seriously. Writing or paying for fake reviews is unethical, against Sitejabber’s terms and is illegal in many jurisdictions. New York’s Attorney General recently fined 19 companies $350,000 for violations associated with fake reviews. Sitejabber uses software algorithms, community reporting and other methods to aggressively detect and remove fake reviews. If a company is discovered to be writing or paying for fake reviews they may lose access to their SJ Business Suite Account, have their business publicly flagged as manipulating reviews and be demoted in Sitejabber search.
All Sitejabber review collection tools for businesses must be used to collect reviews from unbiased samples of customers. Businesses may not select customers that might be more likely to write positive reviews and they may not offer incentives to write reviews. Any violation of any of these terms may result in the loss of access to SJ Business Suite Accounts.
Sitejabber is free to use for consumers and businesses. Businesses can also choose a paid plan. Businesses cannot however pay to remove or suppress reviews.
No. However, if you are affiliated with a business and would like to respond to a review, you can do so by registering here.
Websites like Sitejabber are protected under federal law by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Your attorneys will find dozens of relevant cases if they are not already familiar with the statute, but Zeran v. AOL, 129 F. 3 327, 330 (4th Cir. 1997) is a well-known example.
Careful consideration should be taken if you are considering legal action against a reviewer. Defamation suits are expensive, difficult to win, and tend to draw additional attention to the issues you would prefer ignored. You will also run a risk of the Anti-SLAPP statute requiring you to pay attorneys’ fees to the other side. Rarely, there may be cases where legal action is appropriate, but in general, it is unlikely you will find what you are looking for by suing someone who gives you a bad review.