First-party vs third-party reviews
First-party reviews live on infrastructure you control — your own website, your own store.
Verified review
A verified review is one the platform can tie to a real transaction — a confirmed purchase, a completed booking, a finished job..
Definition
A verified review is one the platform can tie to a real transaction — a confirmed purchase, a completed booking, a finished job.
It does not mean the review is fair or accurate. It means the person actually was a customer.
What it looks like in practice
Amazon’s “Verified Purchase” label, an OpenTable review from a completed booking, a Thumbtack review tied to a job booked through the platform.
Why it matters
Verification is what separates review platforms that are hard to game from ones that are not. Which is why the platform a review came from is worth displaying alongside it — a source badge is itself a trust signal, and hiding it removes the strongest thing the review has.
Related terms
First-party vs third-party reviews · User-generated content · Filtering & moderation.
The full reviews glossary defines every term used across this site.
Questions
Related terms
User-generated content (UGC)
User-generated content is any content about a brand created by its customers rather than by the brand: reviews, photos, videos, comments, forum posts, social media mentions..
Google Place ID
The unique identifier Google assigns to a place. Find yours below.
Social proof
Social proof is the tendency to judge something by how other people have judged it.