It is often based on a blog platform like WordPress or Squarespace, has a privacy and contact page to help with SEO, and has commenting and interactivity turned off.
Because of this, the FTC has provided several guidelines requiring publishers to disclose when they benefit monetarily from the content in the form of advertising, affiliate marketing, etc.
[4] In an academic study published in 2008, empirical results demonstrated that the number of online user reviews is a good indicator of the intensity of underlying word-of-mouth effect and increase awareness.
According to Kurt Opsahl, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), anonymity of reviewers is important.
[8] Rating sites typically show a series of images (or other content) in random fashion, or chosen by computer algorithm, instead of allowing users to choose.
Typically, the site gives instant feedback in terms of the item's running score, or the percentage of other users who agree with the assessment.
Yet others are devoted to disliked men (DoucheBagAlert), bowel movements (ratemypoo.com), unsigned bands (RateBandsOnline.com), politics (RateMyTory.Com), nightclubs, business professionals, clothes, cars, and many other subjects.
The title derives from a rating system Dudley Moore uses to grade women based upon beauty, with a 10 being the epitome of attractiveness.
During this year psychologists J. H. Langlois and L. A. Roggman examined whether facial attractiveness was linked to geometric averageness.
To test their hypothesis, they selected photographs of 192 male and female Caucasian faces; each of which was computer scanned and digitized.
In 1996, Rasen created the first "Perfect 10 Model Search" at the Pure Platinum club near Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
[10] So called reputation management firms may also submit false positive reviews on behalf of businesses.
In 2011, RateMDs.com and Yelp detected dozens of positive reviews of doctors, submitted from the same IP addresses by a firm called Medical Justice.
Most rating sites suffer from similar self-selection bias since only highly motivated individuals devote their time to completing these rankings, and not a fair sampling of the population.
In 2009, the State of New York required Lifestyle Lift, a cosmetic surgery company, to pay $300,000 in fines.