They&#x27;re usually astroturfed. Some vendors will go as far as offering a small rebate to customers who leave a positive review of the product.<p>I would guess that probably 85% of &quot;user-generated content&quot; on mainstream outlets like Amazon is the result of astroturfing or other paid schemes. It&#x27;s practically impossible to compete in any online marketplace without turfing the crap out of every slightly relevant outlet. Your competitors are doing it constantly, and the disadvantage will be really big if you don&#x27;t play ball too.<p>One example: our objectively superior product with a great design and great functional foundation was substantially less popular than the dirty rip off that had their site built with cheap oDesk labor and designed with cheesy stock photos, but spent ridiculous amounts of money on SEO and fake Facebook comments. We were substantially cheaper too. There was literally no reason to ever use the other person&#x27;s offering, and there was no reason for them to show up ahead of us on searches, but they did.<p>Don&#x27;t believe Google&#x27;s line of BS that to get to the top you just need to put out good content. It&#x27;s total nonsense. What you need are backlinks, which are bought and laundered into a network of sites controlled by the same SEO group, and social media clout, which is bought by paying third-world contractors $1.50&#x2F;hr to make fake Facebook and Twitter profiles and talk about your company.