Not as good as everyone thinks! (tripadvisor.co.uk)

Member Name: stuff10

Product:	tripadvisor.co.uk
Date:	28/06/09 (27 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Undeniably good source of information

Disadvantages: Lots of ads, don't pay you for content

The other half uses Trip Advisor to plan all of our holidays, as she finds the reviews helpful and thinks the site is brilliant. I'm not convinced to be honest.

The design is nice enough with its dooyoo-like green and white colourscheme. A search bar is prominently placed at the top of the site allowing you to quickly locate your desired hotel or destination. Strangely this search bar doesn't include an auto-prediction facility, like most other travel sites do (including Holidays Uncovered).

One of the things that strikes me about Trip Advisor is the number of adverts that are displayed on the page - I know they have to make money, but the ads are everywhere! They also use pop-under ads, which I think are pretty sneaky (like pop-ups, but they don't take the focus off the current page).

Once you've found the hotel you're interested in, you can read reviews as well as view user-submitted photos and videos of the hotel and general destination - again, these are framed by plenty of adverts.

My main problem with the website is that people will happily spend hours writing reviews purely to make money for Trip Advisor. They don't pay you for your content. Perhaps I've got the wrong attitude, but if I'm writing your content, I want some of your ad revenue!

Holidays Uncovered pay £1 per review (if you go through cashback websites) and Simon Seeks also pay for your content. Neither of these site have as many adverts either!

Summary: Use it for research, but give your content to Holidays Uncovered or Simon Seeks