Ratings and Reviews Policy

This page explains how star ratings and reviews work on Guided Fixes, where they come from, and what they can and cannot tell you.

Two kinds of ratings

How star ratings work

1. Open a guide and find the box called Was this guide helpful?
2. Choose from 1 star (not helpful) to 5 stars (very helpful).
3. If you wish, type a private note in the box that appears. We call this feedback, and it is optional.
4. Press Send my rating. If you have rated the guide before, the button reads Update my rating.

• Ratings are anonymous. You do not need an account or a name, and the site does not link a rating to your name, email address or IP address. The Privacy Policy explains the limits of this.
• One rating per visitor for each guide. Your browser keeps a random anonymous token, and the site saves only a scrambled code made from it. If you rate the same guide again, your new rating replaces the old one. It is not counted twice, so you can change your mind at any time. A guide you have rated shows your rating and a Change my rating button.
• The average is shown with the number of ratings. It is the mean of all ratings for the guide, rounded to one decimal place. A guide page also shows how many ratings each star level received.
• No made-up numbers. If nobody has rated a guide, no rating is shown. We never add starting or sample ratings.
• It needs JavaScript. The rating box works only when JavaScript is on in your browser. If ratings are not available, you can send feedback on the contact page instead.
• Limits. If you clear your browser's site data, or use another browser or device, the site cannot tell that you are the same visitor. You could then rate the same guide again. This is one reason ratings are not verified.

What star ratings are, and what they are not

Star ratings are the opinions of visitors who chose to rate a guide, shown as an average. They are not:

• verified, because we cannot check that a person read the guide or tried the fix
• expert or professional reviews
• test results
• proof that a guide is correct, safe or right for your device

A small number of ratings can be misleading, so look at how many ratings there are as well as the average.

Private feedback

When you rate a guide you can add a private note of up to 1,000 characters. We call it feedback. It is private, and we never show it on the site.

Each time you add or change a note, the site sends it to us by email. A copy also stays in the site's database, and that copy is erased 180 days after you first rated the guide. The email copy stays in our mailbox until we delete it. The email does not include your IP address or your anonymous token, but it does include everything you typed in the note.

We use feedback to improve guides. We cannot reply to it, because we do not know who sent it. If you need an answer, use the contact page instead. Please do not put personal details in feedback.

To erase a note from the database yourself, send your rating again with the note box empty. The email copy we already received is not affected. Our Privacy Policy explains how feedback is handled.

Google reviews

This site can show reviews from Google. It is an optional feature. If this site does not show a Google reviews section, nothing in this part applies to it.

• Loaded live from Google. Your browser asks Google for the reviews when the section scrolls into view. We do not keep a copy of them.
• Not edited or filtered by us. We do not write, edit, choose, filter or remove reviews. Google controls them: it decides which reviews are available and in what order. We show up to five reviews, as Google returns them, with the author's name, photo, stars, text and time.
• They can change. Because reviews are loaded live, they can change or disappear at any time.
• Links to Google. The section also shows the place's overall rating, the number of reviews, a "Google Maps" credit and two links: Write a review and See all reviews on Google.
• Google's rules apply. Reviews are posted by people using their Google accounts. To report a review that you think breaks Google's rules, use Google's own tools. We cannot remove or change a review.
• Privacy. If your browser reports Global Privacy Control to the page, the section does not load Google's code and shows only the two links. When the section does load, Google receives data from your browser and handles it under its own privacy policy. The same happens if the reviews cannot be loaded.
• Kept separate. Google reviews and star ratings on guides are not combined.

No incentives and no fake reviews

We do not pay for, reward or give anything of value in exchange for ratings or reviews. We do not ask people to leave only good ones. We do not write fake ratings or reviews, and we do not ask anyone else to. We do not delete ratings because they are low. Guides never carry quotes or reviews from named people.

Please do not accept a reward for rating a guide, and do not rate on behalf of other people.

Automated, fake or abusive ratings

The site limits how many ratings can be sent from one place and one browser within an hour, and it ignores submissions that look automated. We may remove ratings or feedback that we believe are automated, fake, paid for or abusive, or that are part of an attempt to manipulate an average. We cannot always tell, and we do not remove ratings only because someone disagrees with them.

Reporting a problem or disputing a rating

If you think a guide's rating has been manipulated, or you want to report abusive feedback, use the contact page and choose Something else. Tell us the guide and what you noticed. Ratings are anonymous, so we look for patterns, such as many ratings arriving at the same moment. If we find ratings that break these rules, we remove them.

To change your own rating, rate the guide again. To have it removed, see "Your privacy rights" in the Privacy Policy. For a Google review, use Google's own tools.