For someone to justify that amount of effort it would require sponsorship, which brings into question objectivity.
Unless some media is subscription and payment based there will always be that factor. I like search for reviews they might have done on tools I already know. If their review of those matches up with my experience I tend to trust their other reviews more too. Some reviews and channels try to review things they clearly don't know how to use. They then proceed to give a tool bad marks because they don't understand it or try to force it into some contrived use it was never meant for in the first place. Either way unfair to the tool, and less to no trust from me. (Some admit to not knowing the use or the tool. That is fair enough, but then the review becomes all that much less useful too I think). As for sponsorship I try to look whether it is a general one or one from a specific source. If it is a general one, say Amazon, then they can pick basically everything. Thus less ties to anything specific and likely more objective? If it is a specific sponsor with a specific range of products to push then clearly something that should be informed about, and I'd read any review in that context.
Guys in another thread we’re discussing ‘top ten’ sites that don’t offer much information and they barely skim the surface on what truly matters when ranking products. I thought, after not seeing a thread on this elsewhere (definitely could have overlooked), it may be worth a thread which people can reference for legitimate and meaningful reviews.IMO, only sites which meet the three below standards should be relevant; however many smaller sites do a fine job and if you’re vouching for them, that’s good enough for me. The three criteria: 1. They publish their sponsors and affiliations2. Their review methodology, for each ranking, is published with the article or linked to a page on their site3. They offer an ability for public comments and scrutiny by offering comments sections or a forumI’ll start with two of my daily haunts.... protoolreviews and toolguyd. Both post about new and review power tools from large and small manufacturers. They also feature ranking articles. Best of all, they meet the above criteria for trustworthiness as well as often announce and review multi’s and knives. Lastly, while it may seem that I’m stepping out on MT.org.... it’s innocent flirting when I visit those sites.
First of all, I don't use google, because whilst popularity based search algorithms were inventive in the day - they are practically useless now with all the "gaming" that goes on
It is sad that the review section gets overlooked. Some members do not even know it exists. There's a ton of information there. Very few people make reviews nowadays. I hope we see more. I'll do another one this week I hope.