Customer Review Creation Guidelines
Guidelines for Amazon.com Community participation
We want to know what you think! As an Amazon customer, your feedback about the products and services you purchase or have experience with will help future shoppers make the right buying decisions. Tell us about your experience with the product or service you purchased. What did you like or not like? What worked well and what didn’t?
WHO MAY WRITE A REVIEW?
To write a Customer Review, you must have used your account to purchase any item or service on Amazon (free digital content doesn’t qualify toward this requirement). We do not permit reviews of the same product from customers in the same household.
HOW CAN I WRITE A GREAT REVIEW?
- Include the "why": The best reviews include not only whether you liked or disliked a product or service, but also why. Feel free to make comparisons with related products or services you’ve experienced.
- Be specific: Your review should be relevant to the product or service you’re reviewing and focus on specific features or your experience. For video and image reviews, we recommend that you write a brief introduction.
- Not too short, not too long: Written reviews should be at least 20 words and are limited to 5,000 words. The ideal length is 75 to 500 words. Video reviews have a 10-minute limit, but we recommend 2 to 5 minutes to keep your audience engaged.
- Be sincere: We welcome your honest opinion about the product or service. We do not remove reviews because they are critical. We believe all helpful information can inform our customers’ buying decisions.
WHY WAS MY REVIEW REJECTED OR REMOVED?
If your review does not comply with these guidelines, it may be rejected or removed.
We are unable to accept the following feedback:
Reviews that are not about the product
- Seller & Shipping Experience – Feedback about the seller, your shipment experience, or packaging is not a product review and should be shared at www.amazon.com/feedback or www.amazon.com/packaging.
- Product Availability & Feedback – Comments about product availability or alternate ordering options are not about the product and should be shared by contacting us.
Reviews that contain inappropriate or offensive content
- Inappropriate Content – Reviews may not contain obscenities, profanity, phone numbers, mailing addresses, non-Amazon URLs, videos with watermarks , foreign language content (unless there is a clear connection to the product), or other people’s material (including excessive quoting).
- Hate Speech & Offensive Content – We don't allow reviews that express intolerance for people belonging to identity groups including race, gender, religion, sexual preference, or nationality. Customers are allowed to comment on products and question the expertise of authors, sellers, or other customers as long as it is in a non-threatening manner.
- Promotion of Illegal Conduct – Reviews may not encourage or support behavior that is illegal, including violence, illegal drug use, underage drinking, and child or animal abuse.
Promotional content
- Promotional Reviews – In order to preserve the integrity of Customer Reviews, we do not permit artists, authors, developers, manufacturers, publishers, sellers or vendors to write Customer Reviews for their own products or services, to post negative reviews on competing products or services, or to vote on the helpfulness of reviews. For the same reason, family members or close friends of the person, group, or company selling on Amazon may not write Customer Reviews for those particular items.
- Paid Reviews – We do not permit reviews or votes on the helpfulness of reviews that are posted in exchange for compensation of any kind, including payment (whether in the form of money or gift certificates), bonus content, entry to a contest or sweepstakes, discounts on future purchases, extra product, or other gifts.
The sole exception to this rule is when a free or discounted copy of a physical product is provided to a customer up front. In this case, if you offer a free or discounted product in exchange for a review, you must clearly state that you welcome both positive and negative feedback. If you receive a free or discounted product in exchange for your review, you must clearly and conspicuously disclose that fact. Reviews from the Amazon Vine program are already labeled, so additional disclosure is not necessary. Read more about promotional content.
REPORTING VIOLATIONS & PRODUCT SAFETY
If you believe a review violates our guidelines, please let us know. Below each review, you’ll find a question that asks, "Was this review helpful to you?" If you answer "no," you can let us know why the review is inappropriate. We'll examine the review and take the appropriate action.
If you have safety concerns about the product you are reviewing please report this information to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) or contact us directly. Please make sure to include all information about the product (product title, and ASIN or manufacturer's SKU) and the details of the incident.
Here is the link to amazons review policy.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201602680
I want you to really look at this part.
Paid Reviews – We do not permit reviews or votes on the helpfulness of reviews that are posted in exchange for compensation of any kind, including payment (whether in the form of money or gift certificates), bonus content, entry to a contest or sweepstakes, discounts on future purchases, extra product, or other gifts.
The sole exception to this rule is when a free or discounted copy of a physical product is provided to a customer up front. In this case, if you offer a free or discounted product in exchange for a review, you must clearly state that you welcome both positive and negative feedback. If you receive a free or discounted product in exchange for your review, you must clearly and conspicuously disclose that fact. Reviews from the Amazon Vine program are already labeled, so additional disclosure is not necessary.
So if I'm reading that correctly, you have to state that the book was given to you in exchange for a review. So where is everyone getting the information that we can't post ARC, or free copy, or anything along those lines in our reviews? Where did the information about amazons algorithms come from?
Why was my review taken down? I'm still not sure of anything. I gave away some copies of Stuck Up Suit in Vi's group on Facebook. Does Amazon see this and think I'm friends with the author? I do that all the time with books I love. I like being able to help out others who may not have been able to buy the book for whatever reason. And if it's a book I love, why not share my love by giving out copies? What better way to help the author? I don't do it because I know them personally or because I'm looking to gain anything.
I also have been a customer on Amazon since 2010. I'm sure in that time frame I've spent thousands of dollars! THOUSANDS! I've bought 2 kindles, and love them both. I giveaway Amazon gift cards too.
I love Amazon and I love my kindles. But, if this keeps up I'll take my business to iBooks.
Has anything like this happened to you? Let me know, I'm curious as to how much this has happened.
Amazon has removed about 20 of my reviews
ReplyDeleteWow! It's possible they've deleted more of mine, but since they don't notify you when they remove them it could be several of mine.
DeleteI got the same violation email last week. They took down all 420 of my reviews.Poof...gone. They won't tell me anything else. I've had problems since January with them taking down my reviews. I called several times, spoke to 3 supervisors and sent 5 emails, and it gets me nowhere. I can't do ARCs anymore because I can't post anything on Amazon.
ReplyDeleteThat's really crappy. I don't understand why they can't be more specific with what rule we violated!
DeleteI'm with you, Reanell. I love my kindles and I'll still read NetGalley books and ARC's that get sent to it, but I have an iPad and an iPhone and if they don't get it together I won't hesitate to start buying my books on B&N and reading on the Nook App or iBooks!
ReplyDeleteWhen we "follow" authors on Amazon, couldn't that be misconstrued as having whatever relationship with them? I mean, the same as liking their fb page or friending them.
ReplyDeleteTo my understanding, following an author on Amazon means you will be notified of new releases. This comes from Amazon not the author. So I don't think they would base this off of that.
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