Guide
How Agoo checks reviews
What Agoo Reviews checks before and after a review appears, what each label says about the reviewer, how reports and takedowns work, and why money never changes a score.
By Agoo Reviews ·
Agoo Reviews exists to be trusted, so the rules are the same for every business, whether it pays Agoo or not. This is what happens to a review from the moment it’s written.
Before it’s written: who can review
Every reviewer has an account confirmed by phone or email. Before their first review they declare that they’re 18 or over, that the review is about their own real experience, that they have no link to the business, and that they weren’t rewarded for it.
As it’s written: the checks
A review is checked against the guidelines as it’s typed and again when it’s sent: for other people’s personal details, advertising, threats and the like. The checks are the same for every business and every number of stars. Clean reviews appear at once. Some are held for a person to read first: for example every review of a school, a place of worship or an estate, and anything that names staff in a way the rules for that kind of place don’t allow.
On the page: a label on every review
Each review says what was checked about the person behind it. A Verified visit means Agoo’s own record shows a check-in or booking at that place. Invited means the business sent its review link to all its customers, with no choosing. Phone confirmed and Email confirmed mean the account has a confirmed number or address. A label never says a review is true, and the business can’t change it.
What a business can and can’t do
A business can claim its page for free, correct its details, reply to every review, and flag a review against the published rules. It can’t edit, hide, reorder or pay to remove a review, and paying Agoo never changes its score or its place in search.
After it’s published: reports and removals
Anyone can report a review. Reports join one queue, oldest first: no business is handled faster. A review is held or removed only for one of a fixed list of reasons, such as not being a genuine experience, a conflict of interest, a reward, personal details or a court order, never because of its stars. The reviewer is told why, and the score is worked out again.
The score
Every place is scored with the same published formula: it starts as if it had five reviews of 3.5 stars, so one review can’t make it perfect; newer reviews count for more; and only the last 24 months count. A score shows from three reviews. See the formula with a worked example.
What we never do
We never copy reviews or ratings from other websites, never write or edit reviews ourselves, and never tell anyone who wrote a review without the reviewer’s consent or a court order.