Evaluating Content Quality and Usefulness of Online Product Reviews

The results of these evaluations indicate that the usefulness score of a particular review is significantly affected by the qualitative characteristics of the review as measured by readability tests applied to a large dataset of reviews collected from the United Kingdom section of the popular online marketplace Amazon.

Abstract

Online product reviews are an important resource for consumers in online marketplaces because they provide a useful source of support information during the purchase of goods. Furthermore, in some online marketplaces consumers have the opportunity to evaluate the usefulness of a review by using a binary evaluation interface provided by the online marketplace. These evaluations produce a usefulness score, which is calculated as a fraction of helpful votes out of the total votes that a review has received. The results of these evaluations indicate that the usefulness score of a particular review is significantly affected by the qualitative characteristics of the review as measured by readability tests applied to a large dataset of reviews collected from the United Kingdom section of the popular online marketplace Amazon.