Testing the authenticity of a travel blog

Came accross an article in the International Herald Tribune Frequent Traveller: Testing Travel Blogs with Caution  (by Roger Collis Sept 2006) which warned travellers to:

“Beware of bogus blogs is the watchword for travelers seeking unbiased information. There is something seductive about the immediacy of the personal blog, a community of fellow travelers sharing that authentic feeling, until you detect the powers behind it ”. 

Caught my interest due to my previous posts and investigations into the world of “flogging”.  Collis lists a proliferation of travel blogs which under the surface may not entirely be what they seem.    

So how do you check the authenticity of a blog?  

Collis goes on to say that

“The only way to check the authenticity of a blog is to measure it against what you already know of a place or to do more research yourself”.

Personally, I would go one step further and

1) Take a good look at the level of advertising on the blog – who is advertising – how much space is dedicated to advertising.

2) Investigate the owner, writers and contributors of the blog. Do a google search on their names and see if any commercial links become apparent.  

3) Be wary of travel blogs with direct links to online booking site or travel consultants. 

4) If the site has a moderated forum – check out who is doing the moderating and also the terms and conditions of joining the forum (what you can and can not post).

Be even more suspicious if you suddenly start receiving great holiday specials spammed to your email!