Operator glossary
Verified Purchase (and ratings)
The badge marking reviews from confirmed, full-price-ish purchases — weighted heavier by every system that reads reviews — plus the star-only ratings that quietly outnumber written reviews.
A review earns Verified Purchase when the account bought the item on Amazon without deep discounting; unverified reviews (gifted, bought elsewhere) still post but carry less weight in averages and machine reads, and are the first casualties of review purges. Since 2019, one-tap star ratings without text count into the average too — most listings now accumulate more ratings than written reviews.
Operational meanings: review strategies built on heavy discounting produce unverified (or purged) reviews — one more reason Vine, which produces verified badged reviews, is the compliant seed; and the ratings stream makes averages move faster than the written-review page suggests, in both directions.
The numbers
- Verified = purchased on Amazon without deep discount; unverified reviews weigh less and purge first.
- One-tap ratings (no text, since 2019) count in the average — most listings have more ratings than reviews.
Related terms