Can online user reviews be more helpful? Evaluating and improving ranking approaches
Authors: Wang, Jying-Nan; Du, Jiangze; Chiu, Ya-Ling
Journal: Information & Management (2020)
Given the sharply increasing number of online reviews, the selection of strategies by review-hosting firms to help users access more helpful reviews is an intriguing but insuficiently studied issue. We first propose a model to help us understand how reviews receive helpful votes (HV) and non-helpful votes. According to this model, the performances of diferent ranking approaches are compared using several simulated datasets with empirical features. In addition to three well-known ranking approaches, we develop a novel approach based on Bayesian statistics that is easy to implement in existing websites and can be combined with other content recommendation techniques to determine the prior belief in online reviews. More importantly, we suggest two simple ways to enhance existing ranking approaches. The numerical evidence demonstrates the advantages of two enhanced approaches, as indicated by higher helpful ratios and a reduced Matthew efect. These findings have important practical implications for consumers, online retailers, and review-hosting firms