Review Guidelines

What are reviews and comments?

Best in Australia’s reviews and comments give consumers the opportunity to share the experiences they’ve had with Australian businesses. They also help other consumers decide which businesses to use.

A review is one person’s first-hand experience with a business. A comment is a response to a review.

Comments give business owners the opportunity to respond to reviews about their own company. They can say thank you for the praise, apologise for a mistake or give their side of the story.

Comments can also be posted by non-business owners and allow Best in Australia’s community of users to discuss and compare their experiences.

Submitting reviews and comments

All reviews and comments are screened by a team of moderators working around the clock. We moderate all reviews and comments as quickly as possible, however due to the volume of submissions there can sometimes be delays.

We will publish, reject or remove any review or comment at our discretion.

All reviews and comments submitted to Best in Australia become the property of Best in Australia.

We may reproduce any part of a review or comment for publication or broadcast in marketing material, newsletters, on social networking sites, newspapers, magazines, TV, radio or online.

Best in Australia is under no obligation to remove a review or comment when requested by the reviewer or business owner.

The reviews and comments we accept

We accept both positive and negative reviews and comments, so long as they appear to be honest, authentic and written by someone who has had first-hand experience with the business.

We like reviews and comments which are helpful, interesting and funny. Providing as much detail and supporting information as possible will make it more likely for a review to be accepted.

The reviews and comments we reject

Our moderation team are experts at spotting fake and offensive reviews and comments and will reject anything which doesn’t comply with Best in Australia’s review guidelines.

We reject reviews or comments which:

  • Don’t appear to be based on a genuine experience.
  • Contain offensive or derogatory material. This includes anything racist, sexist or homophobic.
  • Are based on rumour or second-hand information (for example, an experience your partner or friend had).
  • Are defamatory. This means to falsely or unjustly damage someone’s reputation, this includes stating a person’s full name, contact details, location or any form of identification. Reviewers must back up any allegations with as much detail and background information as possible for us to consider publishing it.
  • Contain swear words.
  • Contains any personal identifiable information this includes stating a person’s full name or contact details.
  • Are written by a business owner on a competitor’s business listing.
  • Don’t mention specific experiences with the business.
  • Are written in a language other than English or which don’t make sense.
  • May be in contempt of court. This includes reviews and comments containing references to legal cases currently before court.
  • Contain claims of food poisoning, medical malpractice or illegal activity. We encourage reviewers who have experienced these issues to contact the relevant authorities.
  • Contain repeated information (for example a direct copy and paste from another review).

When a review or comment is rejected at initial submission, we send the reviewer an email. Best in Australia regularly evaluates the integrity of published reviews and comments. As such, published reviews and comment that don’t meet our Review Guidelines may be removed at a later time without notice and in this case, we do not send the reviewer an email. Best in Australia’s decision is final and we won’t enter into any further correspondence about the matter.

We don’t accept reviews by business owners, their staff, or ex-staff, on their own business listings. This includes business owners writing testimonials on behalf of customers and staff or ex-staff writing disgruntled criticisms of the business. Best in Australia users often consider these reviews unhelpful or fake. However we do encourage business owners to submit comments in response to customer reviews about their business.

What are tags and collections?

Tags are short hints, tips or opinions, images or videos of a place or business. They’re currently a feature on our Android app, and we’ll be rolling it out to our iPhone app soon. They’re all about sharing your experiences of places you’ve been and businesses you’ve tried in a few words.

A collection is a group of tags, that are created for all sorts of reasons – to share a day you’ve had, to create a list of places you really want to visit, or lists of your personal favourites. You can create collections from your own tags.

Submitting tags and collections

All reviews and comments are screened by a team of moderators working around the clock. We may reject, remove any review or comment at our discretion.

All tags submitted, and all collections created within Best in Australia become the property of Best in Australia. We may reproduce any part of a tag or collection for publication or broadcast in marketing material, newsletters, on social networking sites, newspapers, magazines, TV, radio or online.

Best in Australia is under no obligation to remove any part of a tag when requested by the tagger or business owner.

The tags we accept

We accept both positive and negative tags, so long as they appear to be honest, authentic and written by someone who has had first-hand experience with the business.

We like tags which are helpful, interesting and funny.

The tags we reject

Our moderation team are experts at spotting fake and offensive reviews and comments and will reject anything which doesn’t comply with Best in Australia’s review guidelines.

We’ll reject a tag if:

  • Contains swear words
  • It’s offensive or derogatory
  • It’s defamatory or makes legal references
  • It’s in a foreign language or does not make sense
  • It promotes the tagger’s own business
  • It appears to be for the wrong business
  • The business tagged is closed, moved or had changed

And we’ll reject a photo or video if it:

  • Is offensive or derogatory
  • Appears to be for the wrong business
  • Is technically faulty

We don’t accept tags by business owners or their staff on their own business listings.