My Cottage Holiday Free Listing

[MyCottageHoliday]

Still awaiting a reply from you Mycottageholiday. I emailed you a three weeks ago asking some questions about your site and adding my properties but I've had nothing back yet. ????

Apologies for that. We do make a point of responding very promptly if we possibly can - so I don't know why you haven't had a reply. It is possible that the spam filters got involved?

If you resend to me directly I will make sure you are dealt with. Email andy at my cottage holiday dot co dot uk and I'll do my best to answer your questions.

[paolo]

we check every review and every property added to the site.

Clearly this does not mean that you visit every property reviewed to ascertain the truth of a negative review, so what does it mean? How can you judge whether a negative review is fair or not? How do you stop someone protected by anonymity from damaging someone's livelihood out of malice?

[Garri]

I think 'review' sites like MCH, and even Trip Advisor, are on very shaky ground and it would only take a change in legislation for their entire business model to vanish.

The review system on Hoseasons, as I understand it, is fairly solid as you have to go through their booking process and pay by card for the properties and dates you're interested in. They then have a record that: a) you are who you say you are; b) a 99.9% certainty that you stayed at the property you're reviewing. Therefore, substantiating the legitimacy of the reviewer.

I just don't see how MCH could sit there checking the veracity of every review for every property when the site is free. Perhaps that's why they're hopeful, or rather deluded, of getting £245 per month (not per year!) from people wishing to be featured.

I imagine Andy's phone isn't continuously engaged by the stampede of owners eager to sign up and be 'featured'.

I could be wrong.

[MyCottageHoliday]

we check every review and every property added to the site.

Clearly this does not mean that you visit every property reviewed to ascertain the truth of a negative review, so what does it mean? How can you judge whether a negative review is fair or not? How do you stop someone protected by anonymity from damaging someone's livelihood out of malice?

That's a very good point - but the real issue is that people can post comments anywhere on the internet which can be read by anybody. Most places are not monitored and often an owner will have no right to reply. On MyCottageHoliday we seek to offer a platform where reviewers can share their experiences and where the discussion is moderated. Of course we can't be sure that malicious comments aren't sneaking through, in the same way that we can't guarantee that owners are not posting fictitious positive reviews - but the site is monitored and it seeks to offer users a fair and balanced reference point. That can't be said of the many hundreds of forums, blogs, message boards and sites where people can post unchecked.

If an owner adds their property, they will know if a review has been posted. They can raise an issue with us if there is one. They have a right to reply. This cannot be said of most other sites and we believe it is the best solution and a valuable service.

[MyCottageHoliday]

I just don't see how MCH could sit there checking the veracity of every review for every property when the site is free. Perhaps that's why they're hopeful, or rather deluded, of getting £245 per month (not per year!) from people wishing to be featured.

As I have said, the Featured Cottages idea was only for properties that wanted to be featured on the home page of the site (three properties at any one time out of 3500) - so there was a very restricted but very high visibility opportunity to promote a property. All other cottages have been added free of charge.

However, we are redesigning the site and are removing Featured Properties from the home page and so are withdrawing the facility. This has been planned for some time and is nearly complete.

You are right that in order to grow and improve MyCottageHoliday we do need to generate income and we are looking in to this as part of our redesign.

[Windy]

@ Andy

That's a very good point - but the real issue is that people can post comments anywhere on the internet which can be read by anybody.

True but then most internet blogs haven't managed to get Visit Britain to link to them have they, so you have placed yourself in a rather more visible poistion, which make that comparison a little disingenuous.

@ Gary

Therefore, substantiating the legitimacy of the reviewer

but not the veracity of what they say though. Most complaints I have heard of from owners relate to people who did stay, had a minor problem and then chose to wreak revenge by totally slagging the place of on sites like TA.

This has been planned for some time and is nearly complete.

It isn't terribly professional to continue to offer a service that you admit to having no intention of suppling is it? It would take you no more than a few minutes to remove the offer from your site after all.

[Garri]

You are right that in order to grow and improve MyCottageHoliday we do need to generate income and we are looking in to this as part of our redesign.

Just use Adsense. I was sitting with my partner whilst she was searching the web for some santa letter templates for our lad, and she was quite happily clicking away on Google ads thinking they were links to content.

[Windy]

thinking they were links to content.

...which they are - it's just that their presence on the page is bought not "earned".

[Garri]

but not the veracity of what they say though. Most complaints I have heard of from owners relate to people who did stay, had a minor problem and then chose to wreak revenge by totally slagging the place of on sites like TA.

Yes, I realised that whilst typing, but as a punter I want to read reviews from people who have actually stayed in places. The veracity of what they say is another thing entirely and besides, everyone is different: things that would annoy me about a place may not annoy others, etc.

Also, as a punter I'd like to see how owners respond, which is where MCH might be useful, but overall their site is useless for me because we always go through Hoseasons for UK breaks anyway. Besides, MCH has no mechanism to check that a) people are who they say they are, and b) they actually stayed in the property.

I should also disclose that, as a punter, I personally detest review sites.

[paolo]

That's a very good point - but the real issue is that people can post comments anywhere on the internet which can be read by anybody.

I could also write a negative review and pin it to a lamp-post, that will have about as much effect as these hundreds of places you talk about on the internet. Your site is setting itself up as an aggregator of impartial opinion on properties, if it is successful then people will come to it for information on properties, that is completely different to someone ranting on some unread blog.

Most places are not monitored and often an owner will have no right to reply.

Owners have no right to reply on your site unless they happen to list on it - that is a minuscule proportion of owners.

Of course we can't be sure that malicious comments aren't sneaking through

Then you should not be entering into this business, you are reponsible for everything published on your website. How does this square with your previous statement: "we check every review and every property added to the site"?

the site is monitored and it seeks to offer users a fair and balanced reference point.

Only if an owner happens to be aware of a review.

I think if you were doing this responsibly you would require a reviewer to supply contact details for the owner, you would then ask the owner if the reviewer actually stayed at the property, thereby also putting the owner in a position to exercise the right to reply. If that goes into dispute, the reviewer can supply evidence such as a rental contract.

[olive]

"...as a punter I want to read reviews from people who have actually stayed in places. The veracity of what they say is another thing entirely.."

And there is no way you can distinguish an honest review from a dishonest one - unless you know the reviewer.

[AlastairW]

I just chanced across a review of our cottage on Mycottageholiday and whilst it's positive it does contain a false allegation of damp in one of the reception rooms which could put some people off booking.

I want to know why we weren't consulted before this was posted and what way Mycottageholiday verify reviews on their site. Trip Advisor always mail us to ask to verify if the guest actually stayed at the property before posting a review. Mycottageholiday just sneakily upload unverified reviews to their site.

I've complained to Mycottageholiday and asked them to remove the review.

[MyCottageHoliday]

Alistair - We received your complaint, took action immediately to suspend the reviuew whilst we look into it, and let you know that this had happened - all on a Saturday. Thus far you have provided no response to our email.

And as I pointed out in my email - we have never had an owner complain about a 4 star review. Perhaps your best course of action would have been to contact us to discuss it rather than send an obnoxious email and SNEAKILY leave a post on a messageboard without telling us.

[salmoncottage]

Some time ago we had guests stay at our house and they left it in a terrible state after over occupying it for the duration of their short stay (should be 4 guests, was 6 at least) including a tear to the leather couch which cost over £1000. We contacted them and they denied all responsibility. We held on to their security deposit whilst trying to reason with them then they started to threaten us with bad reviews on trip advisor etc. By pure coincidence we spotted a malicious review posted on 'myholidaycottage' written by the son of one of the guests who had stayed. We called Andy or one of his staff at myholidaycottages and explained the situation honestly and they couldn't have been more helpful and they removed the offending post. The malicious poster actually removed the post themselves from the site following a long and harrowing phone call with myself in which I had to return the damage deposit just to get rid of them. I have long since wondered how a safety net can be introduced to these review sites to prevent long term damage to owners reputations whilst still offering genuine and honest criticism or praise of properties rented. I wish I knew the answer.

[AlastairW]

It's a problem with the entire internet, not just review sites. There's so many untruths that are propagated on the net that it's becoming a very unreliable source of information. You only have to look at any Wikipedia article on something you are knowledgeable about to realise that even so-called trusted sites contain utter bollocks.

And then there's all those conspiracy theories about 9/11 and the end of the world in 2012 because of some Mayan calendar.

Something needs to be done about this, but at the moment it looks like we are headed into a quagmire of disinformation.