It’s harder than ever to find reliable product recommendations online

The cardinal rule of smart shopping is to do your research. For most of us that means an online search to find product recommendations. But in an era of artificial intelligence and paid content creators, you can’t always trust the results.

There are plenty of organizations that conduct rigorous and independent product tests with reliable recommendations — think Consumer Reports, Wirecutter, Good Housekeeping, and America’s Test Kitchen, among others. Many other “best-of” lists, though, are filled with sponsored content, affiliate links, and generic “reviews” generated by bots or unqualified writers.

“With the growth of SEO content farms, affiliate mills and influencers who don’t play by the rules, it’s a pretty polluted ecosystem,” says Nilay Patel, editor in chief of the Verge, a technology and culture website.

Further complicating things is that search engines, particularly Google, often prioritize the less reliable lists. In many cases, that’s because defunct publications have sold website access or created new sections for affiliate content mills. In turn, the third-party business exploits metrics in the Google search algorithm to take advantage of the original site’s credibility — for news, weather, or another topic — and then uses that credibility to rank higher on any search term they want to, says Benjamin Buckley, a publishing and retail industry consultant in Westfield, N.J.

As a result, the unbiased specialty sites whose goal is to inform (rather than sell), including some major players, have been pushed so far down by Google indexing that the average consumer no longer finds them.

Gisele Navarro, managing editor of HouseFresh, an air purifier review site, started looking into this when she noticed a rash of sites all recommending the same air purifier. The problem: The recommended model had been recalled, and the manufacturer was the defendant in a class-action lawsuit and had filed for bankruptcy. “This company was trying to off-load merchandise by paying websites a huge commission for every sale,” she says.

Digging deeper, she spoke with content writers who said they were given templates and lists of specific items to “review” by rewriting manufacturer and/or Amazon and Walmart product descriptions, or by using AI. “And 98% of the time, the writer had no expertise in the content, yet they were recommending everything from CBD gummies to home warranties.”

CookOut News publisher Wes Wright covers the grilling industry, including product reviews for consumers and manufacturers. He has also noticed a trend of writers churning out content in dozens of unrelated categories.

“I know because those people come to me asking questions like, ‘How does a pellet grill work?’ … because they don’t know,” Wright says.

That puts the onus on shoppers to get above the noise to find solid information. Consumers have to be willing to dig deeper and examine not only the recommendations, but the evaluator, says Lilian Kayizzi, vice president of testing, research, and insights at Consumer Reports. Whether you want to buy an electric toothbrush or an e-bike, here are ways to find independent and trusted sites.

When a brand becomes a verb, as is the case with Google, it can feel like the only option, but there are other search engines. Consider using Bing, Duck Duck Go, Brave, or Kagi to look for recommendations. These browsers are more likely to offer unbiased results because they use different methodologies to rank quality content. They are also less likely to show ads or sponsored content in search results, Navarro says. You can always switch back to Google when you’re trying to figure out who won the Grammy for best song in 2012.

To find trustworthy recommendations from reviewers with a specific expertise, skip over anything marked as “sponsored” (that means the company has paid to be pushed to the top of results). Also be leery of lists that are AI-generated, linked to Reddit threads (Google has an interest in Reddit), or on sites that have even a tenuous tie to the product — for example a gardening site reviewing pellet grills, Patel says. That may mean you need to scroll to the third or fourth page of search results.

Does the writing seem formulaic? Is it written in first person? “It’s hard to fake a first-person perspective, especially with videos,” Buckley says. Original photography taken from different angles instead of stock images on a white background is another indicator that the review is legit. Navarro says to watch out for fuzzy wording, such as “some people say,” which usually indicates the writer has never touched the product. And dive into the author’s bio. Do they focus on a handful of items or are they reviewing everything under the sun? A specialist is more likely to give a reliable review.

It may be small, but disclaimers must be at the top of a post or highly visible to the reader to comply with Federal Trade Commission regulations, Navarro says. “If it’s along the lines of, ‘The editorial team is not connected to this,’ then you know the recommendation has nothing to do with the publisher.” By the same token, wording such as, “We may earn commission if you buy from a link” or “We didn’t do extensive hands-on testing for this list” and references to sponsored content, affiliate links, or earning a commission should be red flags.

How does a reviewer back up their claims? Are there videos of specific tests or pictures of a mattress cut in half to show the layers? Or is the site cocreating content with a brand? These are the questions that Geno Prussakov, founder and CEO of AM Navigator, an affiliate program management company, and a guest lecturer at Boston University, recommends asking.

Specialized and independent sites will detail their testing methodology and explain their ethics policies and why you should trust them. As Navarro says, “Small guys hold ourselves accountable for our reviews.”

For instance, America’s Test Kitchen reviews hundreds of kitchen utensils and small appliances. According to Hannah Crowley, executive editor of the ATK reviews team, it takes 160 hours of work to produce each review. “This means cooking 700 eggs to find the best nonstick skillet, 50 hours to make 365 slices of toast to find the best toaster, and 75 hours to make 500 smoothies to ensure that our winning blender doesn’t burn out.”

Consumer Reports, an independent nonprofit that accepts no advertising, also performs rigorous testing in its more than 60 labs and its auto test center. They have published more than 10,000 ratings and reviews of products and services, evaluating more than 2,300 last year alone. “No one tests like we do,” Kayizzi says. “Every recommended item has been tested and rated for performance, safety, reliability and security.”