Fake Review Sites

Discussions General Mattresses Questions
1

I would like to bring to your attention the website BedOwl.com

While researching beds I came across this website. It looked a lot like a Casper site after I realized that everything revolved around Casper, all the comparisons, recommendations, etc. Even the graphics and style of writing was like Casper. When I dug a little deeper on the two writers, one is a lifestyle writer for hire and the other is a web designer, hardly mattress reviewers.

I ran their url through a program I have that shows the outgoing links from a website. Basically, it shows where people are referred from the site. Just as I suspected: 100% of the traffic goes to Casper. Not a large percentage, ALL of it.

See attached:

Isn’t this criminal? Or at least massively unethical? Are mattress companies now hiring people to create fake review sites and send all the traffic to them? Unsuspecting consumers are being ripped off.

2

Hi CharlesU,

Welcome to the Mattress Forum! :slight_smile:

I’ve deleted your post, as rather than drive people away from the specific site you mention, it actually promotes the site by mentioning it here on the forum. You do make a good point that review sites or other people’s experiences in general won’t tell you much if anything about the suitability, quality, durability, or “value” of a mattress for any particular person (see post #13 here). There are many of these affiliate linking sites out there that really provide no meaningful information, which is why it is so important for consumers to be prepared and learn about how to shop for a mattress.

Phoenix