How to make it big on Tripadvisor...

I admit that the concept of Tripadvisor is a good one. You have travelers advising each other on where to stay, eat, drink and go and writing reviews. The company makes money booking the hotels and has an army of people promoting them. And as for hotels and other services, careers are made on Tripadvisor as the more good reviews you get the more people book your hotel and then hopefully add their favorable reviews.

But what if someone has written a bad review? If you go to defend yourself by answering the post will people accept what you say or are they going to believe the bad review? They say that one bad review can make someone think twice about booking with you even if he has just read twenty good reviews before. Well, never fear. Being in the travel biz I get junk mail like the two below from companies who are in a position to assist me should this ever happen. (I have deleted the name and e-mail and website of the company. Sorry.)

Negative Review on TripAdvisor? Get Rid of it!

If you have been dealing with the massive problems caused by Negative Reviews posted against your Business on TripAdvisor.com and you would like to get rid of these Negative Reviews, there is a way to do it and we can help. Here's what we can do for you:

1. Challenge the Negative Review with TripAdvisor: 
This will remove Negative Reviews in about 33% of Cases. We can advise you on how to do this successfully.
2. Bury the Negative Review with Positive Reviews: 
Sign-Up for a 7-Day Free Trial of our TripAdvisor Optimization Service and get many Guaranteed Positive Reviews to counter-act the effects of Negative Reviews and bury Negative Reviews to the bottom of your TripAdvisor Listing where no one will see them.

It is a FACT that Businesses Top-Ranked on TripAdvisor maintain Very High Occupancy and Booking Rates througout the Year, even in Low Season. We specialize in optimizing TripAdvisor Rankings in order to dramatically increase Bookings FAST. This is a specialty optimization service you will not find anywhere else. It's time to take action.

Give us a Try --> Go to sorryIcan'tgivethatinformation.com and try our Service FREE for 7 Days so you can see Real Results before you pay anything - Sign-Up Today!

That sounds reasonable. But if I received this e-mail does that mean I got a negative review on Tripadvisor? Well since I am the quiet sensitive type who won't risk the emotional devastation that reading something nasty that someone has written about me on Tripadvisor would cause me, I guess I will never know.

But wait! What if I could bury any bad reviews under mountains of good reviews? If only there were some way to do this without having to ask the people who use my website to write nice things about me.

So there you go. You can be a lousy hotel and for a small price, or maybe a large one, this company will get rid of all your bad reviews and replace them or bury them with good reviews. I suppose if I was actually a travel agent or a hotel owner and was desperate enough and it was a matter of life or death and I knew that I did offer good service and that somehow I was blind-sided by a couple mean tourists, or even a competitor, this might be something I would be interested in out of sheer desperation. But I wonder how far this service goes. Let's say I pay to have my good name restored on Tripadvisor and suddenly the bookings are pouring in and my bills are getting paid and I have money to spend on advertising. I wonder, does the company that offers this service have a program where they write bad reviews about my competition?

No. They would never do that. That would be unethical.