# FAQs for Reviewers - Capterra > Answers to some of the most common questions about Capterra's reviews program. Source: https://www.capterra.com/faq/faqs-reviewers --- # FAQs for Reviewers [Why am I receiving emails from Capterra after submitting a review?](#why-am-i-receiving-emails-from-capterra-after-submitting-a-review) [I left a review but didn't receive a gift card! Why not?](#i-left-a-review-but-didnt-receive-a-gift-card-why-not) [Why wasn’t my review published?](#why-wasnt-my-review-published) [There were some edits to my review. Can you tell me why?](#there-were-some-edits-to-my-review-can-you-tell-me-why) [Why was my published review removed?](#why-was-my-published-review-removed) [I submitted a review, but was told the review did not meet site guidelines and will not be published. What now?](#i-submitted-a-review-but-was-told-the-review-did-not-meet-site-guidelines-and-will-not-be-published-what-now) [Are reviewers liable for any penalties for leaving fraudulent reviews?](#are-reviewers-liable-for-any-penalties-for-leaving-fraudulent-reviews) [May I leave a review for a product based off of a demo I viewed?](#may-i-leave-a-review-for-a-product-based-off-of-a-demo-i-viewed) [Why was my review flagged for investigation?](#why-was-my-review-flagged-for-investigation) [May I leave a review for a product based off of a free trial?](#may-i-leave-a-review-for-a-product-based-off-of-a-free-trial) [Why did I receive a note that my reviews account was suspended?](#why-did-i-receive-a-note-that-my-reviews-account-was-suspended) [Can I protest a review removal?](#can-i-protest-a-review-removal) [Are notifications sent if a review has been disabled?](#are-notifications-sent-if-a-review-has-been-disabled) [How can I edit my own review?](#how-can-i-edit-my-own-review) [How can I remove my own review?](#how-can-i-remove-my-own-review) [How often can I update or edit my review?](#how-often-can-i-update-or-edit-my-review) [How many reviews for a product are allowed per reviewer?](#how-many-reviews-for-a-product-are-allowed-per-reviewer) [Can I submit more than one review for the same product?](#can-i-submit-more-than-one-review-for-the-same-product) [Why was my review edited to show ?](#why-was-my-review-edited-to-show) [What content is considered "sensitive information"?](#what-content-is-considered-sensitive-information) [What are Buyer Alerts?](#what-are-buyer-alerts) [Can we trust reviews from a vendor with an issued "Buyer Alert"?](#can-we-trust-reviews-from-a-vendor-with-an-issued-buyer-alert) [Where can I find more information about review incentives?](#where-can-i-find-more-information-about-review-incentives) [Where will the content of my review display to the public?](#where-will-the-content-of-my-review-display-to-the-public) [How long will it take for my review to be published?](#how-long-will-it-take-for-my-review-to-be-published) [Are some reviewers ineligible to receive an incentive for their reviews?](#are-some-reviewers-ineligible-to-receive-an-incentive-for-their-reviews) ## Why am I receiving emails from Capterra after submitting a review? Users who submit a review on our site agree to opt-in to future communications from us as outlined in our site terms. Any user who does not wish to receive these notices may choose to opt-out of our email program by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link provided in these emails. Please review our [site terms](https://www.capterra.com/legal/terms-of-use/) for further details. ## I left a review but didn't receive a gift card! Why not? For those reviewers who submitted a review as part of an incentive program, please keep a few key points in mind: - Only published reviews are eligible for an incentive. If a review did not meet our Guidelines and was not published, the reviewer will not be eligible for an incentive for that review. We do, however, encourage that reviewer to submit reviews in future incentivized review campaigns they remain eligible for. - Gift cards are automatically fulfilled by our system at set times. In order to minimize error, our system automatically fulfills gift cards at periodic intervals. - Ensure that the email link to which you responded contained an incentive offer. Only reviews that are submitted after clicking on an incentive link in an email are eligible for an incentive. These links contain tracking information that allows us to match the incentive to the submitted review. If you did not click on a link in the campaign email, our system has no way to know that you left the review. - We could not verify your identity. If we required additional information from you, we may have reached out to you for additional information, during which time both your review publication and incentive were paused. Responding to our request may allow us to publish the review and provide you with your gift card. - The gift card confirmation link was not clicked on. To ensure our gift cards are going only to valid emails, we send a confirmation email containing a link that must be clicked on before the actual gift card is sent. - The review was submitted after the incentive expired or after payout limits were reached. Some of our programs offer a limited number of gift cards only, or have an offer that expires after a set period of time. Reviews submitted after the thresholds have been met would not qualify for a gift card. In all cases, please double check your Spam and Trash accounts for our gift card offers before reaching out to our support team. A note on fraud. Gift card codes are unique, and may only be used only by those who have access to the email the cards were originally sent to. Please know that we are able to track gift card balance and identify whether a gift card has been redeemed and used. Illegitimate requests for an incentive, as well as any fraudulent activity related to leaving reviews in exchange for an incentive, may result in removal from our reviews incentive program. ## Why wasn’t my review published? Your submitted review may not be displaying because i) it is [waiting to be reviewed by our team](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/faqs-reviewers#faq-25), ii) the review failed to meet one or more of our [Reviews Guidelines](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/guidelines#writing-2), or iii) the review was not otherwise eligible for publication (for example, if the review was submitted in an [unsupported language](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/faqs-verification#faq-19)). NOTE: To protect the integrity of our reviews program, reviews are disabled if we do not feel confident we have verified the identity of the reviewer. In these cases we will reach out to reviewers requesting additional information. Though no guarantee, responding to these emails with helpful information can aid our investigation and lead to publication of your review. ## There were some edits to my review. Can you tell me why? As per our [reviewer policies](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/guidelines#writing-3), we will never make an edit that would change the original intent of a review. However, we may make simple edits to correct typos or remove non-standard characters. Edits may also be made to hide sensitive data (as further described [here](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/faqs-reviewers#faq-20)), such as personally identifying information, or private contract terms that are not intended for public disclosure. The reviewer will not be notified about these edits, which are made at the discretion of Capterra. ## Why was my published review removed? Our teams have built an extremely robust [QA process](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/guidelines#understanding-2), but we understand that with tens of thousands of reviews submitted each month that there will be reviews which violate [our guidelines](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/guidelines#community-guidelines) that occasionally slip by. In our ongoing efforts to improve our service, our teams periodically audit our reviews database. These audits help find reviews that fail to meet our guidelines, which we may not have identified initially. When reviews are found to violate our guidelines for any reason they must be disabled, even if the review was originally published by us. Audits are conducted across our entire reviews database, and impact all reviewers equally. ## I submitted a review, but was told the review did not meet site guidelines and will not be published. What now? If a review does not pass our QA process or is identified by our team as not meeting our [Community Guidelines](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/guidelines), the review will not be published. Reviews that are not published do not qualify for an incentive, even when submitted in response to an incentive offer. Users may submit another review that meets our guidelines. ## Are reviewers liable for any penalties for leaving fraudulent reviews? In short, possibly. When submitting a review, you are agreeing to our [site guidelines](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/guidelines), and that all content submitted meets our guidelines. Our site has the right to seek legal action against any reviewer who submits a review containing fraudulent, or misleading, information. In addition, many jurisdictions in and outside of the United States take reviews content very seriously, and have prosecuted reviewers over posting fraudulent content. In 2009, a case was settled by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in which a company posting fake reviews agreed to pay a $300,000 penalty. Countries outside of the US, such as the UK, France, Italy, and Germany, also have strict laws posted about reviews fraud, as dictated by the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. ## May I leave a review for a product based off of a demo I viewed? We believe software reviews should be based off of actual experience in using a product. Watching a product demo is not the same as hands-on experience in using a product, and as such a review found to be based off of a viewed product demo would be disabled by our team. However, a viewed demo is not treated the same as evaluating a product during a free trial period. Participating in a free trial does include hands-on experience. If you used a software during a free trial period, you may review the software, but should indicate that you used a free trial on the review form. ## Why was my review flagged for investigation? Reviews may be flagged as potentially fraudulent by the vendor, other reviewers, or during our internal audits of our reviews database. At these times, we may ask for more information, such as proof of use, in order to better understand if the review in question does meet our guidelines. If a review is found to be in violation of our guidelines, it will be removed. Please reference [our investigation process overview](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/guidelines#writing-5) for more detail. ## May I leave a review for a product based off of a free trial? Software buyers may evaluate multiple tools before purchasing software. We believe these evaluative experiences in a proof of concept or with trial versions are valid experiences to share with our user community. If you used free trial version of a software, you may review the software, but should indicate that you used a free trial by selecting “Free Trial” on the review submission form. ## Why did I receive a note that my reviews account was suspended? We are dedicated to connecting software shoppers and vendors by being the largest, and most trustworthy, source of software reviews. To achieve this end, all reviews are manually reviewed by a dedicated [Quality Assurance team](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/guidelines#understanding-2). Any signs of reviews fraud result in the review being disabled. Users who are found to have committed fraud may have their accounts banned, with associated reviews removed across all products, and would not be allowed to submit future reviews. If your reviews have been marked as fraudulent, you may receive a note indicating such. We understand that you may not agree with our decision, but please know much consideration is given before flagging and closing any user’s account. We encourage you to reference our [guidelines](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/guidelines#community-guidelines) to help understand factors involved in our decisions. ## Can I protest a review removal? Our site strives to maintain a neutral stance on reviews, disabling only those that fail to meet our [Community Guidelines](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/guidelines#community-guidelines). If you believe your review met our Community Guidelines, and was incorrectly disabled, you are welcome to submit an inquiry to our Compliance team at [reviews@capterra.com](mailto:reviews@capterra.com). The Compliance team is tasked with upholding our guidelines, and will investigate the review status to ensure that the appropriate decision was reached. Please know that we do not share information about our decisions underlying a review removal because there are many data points that our systems collect, which are considered proprietary. ## Are notifications sent if a review has been disabled? If a review was not published because our teams were unable to validate a reviewer’s identity (a cornerstone of our [QA process](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/guidelines#understanding-2)), we will send the reviewer an email asking for additional information that can help validate who they are. A user who responds to this request with accurate information makes it more likely that our team will be able to verify their identity during our QA process. However, in cases where a review is disabled because it violated our [Community Guidelines](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/guidelines#community-guidelines), we do not send notice to the reviewer or vendor. While we realize there are cases where the reviewer was not intending to violate our guidelines, we must treat intended and unintended violations equally. ## How can I edit my own review? Our team may make simple edits, such as typos or spelling corrections, upon receipt of a request from the original reviewer to [reviews@capterra.com](mailto:reviews@capterra.com). The request must be sent from the email address used to submit the original review, as only the actual reviewer is entitled to direct us to edit their review. We cannot otherwise edit the content of a previously published review. Instead, reviewers may replace existing reviews at any time by submitting a new review for a product they have previously reviewed. The updated review will then be re-evaluated by our QA team. Only a single review is allowed by a reviewer for the same product at a given time, and if published the new review will replace the original. If it has been less than six (6) months since the review was originally submitted, please notify our team of the submission at [reviews@capterra.com](mailto:reviews@capterra.com) to ensure our team treats the review appropriately. Failure to contact our team will result in the new submission being disabled. Please note that reviews submitted within a six (6) month window for the same product are regarded as edits, and are not eligible for any incentive offer the reviewer may have received. ## How can I remove my own review? To request a review to be removed, any reviewer may send us an email to [reviews@capterra.com](mailto:reviews@capterra.com), explaining which review they want to remove and the rationale for such removal (for our records). The request must be sent from the email address used to submit the original review, as only the actual reviewer is entitled to direct us to remove their review. Once we disable an existing review, a reviewer always has the option to submit a new review for the product for evaluation by our QA team. If it has been less than six (6) months since the review was originally submitted, please notify our team of the new submission at [reviews@capterra.com](mailto:reviews@capterra.com) to ensure our team treats the review appropriately. Failure to contact our team will result in the new submission being disabled. Please note that reviews submitted within a six (6) month window for the same product are regarded as edits, and are not eligible for any incentive offer the reviewer may have received. ## How often can I update or edit my review? You may request a minor edit to an existing review, or submit a new review to replace an existing review, at any time (see [How can I edit or remove my own review?](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/faqs-reviewers#faq-14)). Please note that reviews submitted within a six (6) month window for the same product are regarded as edits, and are not eligible for any incentive offer the reviewer may have received. ## How many reviews for a product are allowed per reviewer? To prevent a single reviewer from overly influencing the reviews of a product, only a single review is allowed by a reviewer for the same product at a given time. ## Can I submit more than one review for the same product? We understand that experiences with a software can change over time, and we believe an updated review allows a new opinion to be expressed. However, we only allow a single review from an individual reviewer to be published at any time for any one product, and require at least six months to pass before a new review for the same product may be accepted. If you are looking to edit an existing review, please read more [How can I edit or remove my own review?](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/faqs-reviewers#faq-14). ## Why was my review edited to show \[SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN\]? If a review contains sensitive information, we will hide this information from public display. Sensitive information may include, but is not limited to: - Personally Identifying Information. Information, such as email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers, names, or other details that could help identify an individual. - Confidential Contract Terms. Contracts between two parties often contain sensitive information that may not be intended for public disclosure such as pricing information, account service details, or other terms. - Potentially Harmful Information. Any other information that we in our reasonable discretion determine could be detrimental to the interests of a reviewer, vendor or another individual. In such cases the text \[SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN\] will be displayed in place of the original text. NOTE: We will never edit a review in any way that would change the original intent. If a review is worded such that masking sensitive information would change the intent of the review, the review would not meet our Community Guidelines, and would not be published. In all cases, the reviewer will not be notified about these edits, which are made at the discretion of Capterra. ## What content is considered "sensitive information"? Sensitive information may include, but is not limited to: - Personally Identifying Information. Information, such as email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers, names, or other details that could help identify an individual. - Confidential Contract Terms. Contracts between two parties often contain sensitive information that may not be intended for public disclosure such as pricing information, account service details, or other terms. - Potentially Harmful Information. Any other information that we in our reasonable discretion determine could be detrimental to the interests of a reviewer, vendor or another individual. In such cases the text \[SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN\] will be displayed in place of the original text. ([Read More](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/faqs-reviewers#faq-20)) ## What are Buyer Alerts? A Buyer Alert is a banner placed at the top of a vendor's product profile page, informing software shoppers that suspicious behavior has been found to be associated with this vendor, which behavior (i) may be causing doubt as to the veracity of the reviews submitted about the vendor's services, or (ii) may be manifesting in other deceitful activity across our site. After a vendor’s violation of our policies has been identified and confirmed, we will issue a visible Buyer Alert on the offending vendor’s associated product profile page(s), and then monitor the vendor’s account for a 90 day period. After this period, our teams will review the vendor’s profile(s) and determine whether the Buyer Alert will remain active on the vendor’s product profile page(s), or be removed. Egregious and ongoing violations may warrant additional action, including without limitation, removal of access to the offending vendor’s product profile pages, extension(s) of the Buyer Alert period, referral to appropriate regulatory authorities, or legal action. ## Can we trust reviews from a vendor with an issued "Buyer Alert"? Prior to issuing a "Buyer Alert", our Teams will take corrective action to remove any content that violates our Site guidelines. Any reviews remaining on a vendor’s product profile page after a "Buyer Alert" has been issued will have passed through intensive scrutiny by our expert Quality Assurance team. However, because the actions of the vendor has placed their account under suspicion, we encourage buyers to proceed with caution when relying on reviews of a flagged vendor to make an informed software purchasing decision. ## Where can I find more information about review incentives? If you submitted a review in response to an incentive offer from our site, you may find more information about eligibility and incentive distribution in our [Incentive Program FAQ](https://review.capterra.com/Incentive-Program-FAQ). ## Where will the content of my review display to the public? Published reviews may display publicly i) on the profile page of the software reviewed, ii) in summarized form throughout our site, such as the “[snippets](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/faqs-vendors#faq-41)” and “product comparison” sections of software profile pages on applicable sites, and iii) through reviews-sharing applications hosted by our site used to display reviews content on third party sites. Please refer to our [General User Terms](https://www.capterra.com/legal/terms-of-use/) for more information regarding content ownership and usage rights. ## How long will it take for my review to be published? Every review submitted to our site is manually evaluated by our [Quality Assurance](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/guidelines#understanding-2) team to ensure published reviews meet our site guidelines. While the QA teams work diligently, it can take up to two (2) weeks to process reviews. If it has been more than two (2) weeks since your submission, you may assume that either our QA teams were either unable to validate your identity or your review did not meet our [criteria for publication](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/guidelines#writing-2). ## Are some reviewers ineligible to receive an incentive for their reviews? Yes, there are certain reviewers to whom incentives cannot be provided in response to an offer because doing so violates the law and/or corporate policy prohibiting gifts in the context of a business transaction. Please review our [eligibility restrictions](https://www.capterra.com/reviews/guidelines#writing-6) carefully prior to leaving a review.