Community Guidelines

G2 Crowd works hard to earn your trust. Below are some of the principles we operate by to ensure G2 Crowd is the most valued and trusted source of information to find and select business software and services.

We strive to keep our ratings authentic.

We require the use of a LinkedIn™ account or verified business email address to validate a G2 Crowd reviewer’s identity and current employer. We also validate reviewers by partnering with vendors and organizations to securely authenticate users through select platforms. We do not allow users to review products made by their current or former employers or products made by competitors of their employer.

  • No pay-to-plays. Software providers cannot influence the ratings, placement, sort order, etc., of their product(s) by spending time or money with us.
  • Review moderation. After our automatic filtering process removes reviews that do not meet our minimum submission requirements, our team manually checks each review. All reviews must pass our moderation process before they are published.
    • The “Validated Reviewer” label denotes how the reviewer was authenticated.
    • The "Verified Current User" label indicates that the review includes an approved screenshot of the reviewer logged into the software.
  • Our algorithms. G2 Crowd satisfaction ratings, market presence scores, and index scores are determined algorithmically in real time based on reviews gathered from our user community, as well as data aggregated from publicly available online sources and social networks. Only the ratings submitted by verified reviewers and data from public sources factor into G2 Crowd ratings, and our algorithms the same for all categories. Read more about our algorithm
  • Business partners. Users who have a business relationship with a vendor, such as resellers, can often provide valuable insight and are not restricted from leaving reviews on G2 Crowd. However, because of the potential bias of such relationships, business partner reviews do not count toward a product's score and are flagged with a "Business Partner" label on the review.
  • Objective data. G2 Crowd does not add any subjective input to ratings, Grid® placement, or review summaries. We do not, under any circumstances, edit the content of a review.
  • Rejected reviews. We reserve the right to remove reviews that do not meet minimum quality standards, including, but not limited to, those that have been copied from other sources, contain responses unrelated to the questions asked, include defamatory comments, or indicate trial or non-professional use. We also reserve the right to remove any reviews, comments, or other content contributed by a user when the user’s G2 Crowd or LinkedIn™ profile is missing critical identifying information.
  • Editing reviews. Users can always edit their review to reflect changing opinions or to ensure that the review meets our quality standards. Editing a review will send it back into our moderation process.
  • Incentives. G2 Crowd will occasionally offer incentives for honest reviews to help us gather a full and accurate data set. These incentives are offered as thank-yous for approved reviews; eligibility to receive an incentive is never based on the opinions, positive or negative, of the review.
  • Buyer Alerts. If we discover attempts by vendors to manipulate their reviews, we may issue alerts to warn users about this behavior. Actions that trigger these alerts include, but are not limited to, soliciting only positive reviews, discouraging negative reviews, threatening users to remove negative reviews, and writing fake reviews from a shared IP address. Read more about our Buyer Alerts program.

We protect our users’ privacy.

  • Account privacy. We do not share your data with outside sources for any reason without your express permission. While we do ask contributing users to sign in via their LinkedIn™ profiles or a verified business email, this information is used strictly to validate reviewer identity and user authenticity.
  • LinkedIn™ connections. If you grant G2 Crowd access to your LinkedIn™ connections, we do not access your connections' contact information. By granting access to your LinkedIn™ connections, you are able to see reviews written by your first-degree connections; this empowers you to then reach out to your connections for more information on the products they use.
  • Social sharing. We will not post to any social network on your behalf for any reason.
  • Unattributed reviews. We understand that business relationships between customers and vendors may require discretion. G2 Crowd gives users the option to have any of their reviews posted without identifying information (their name, photo, company) accompanying the review. The G2 Crowd team still validates these reviews using the information provided by the user, but an “unattributed” review will display only the user’s current job category and industry. G2 Crowd will not share the user's information with the public or the company whose product the user reviewed.

Tips for writing reviews

  • Write for the reader. Your review could help someone choose their next piece of software. In your review, include details you would be looking for if you were in the market for the same type of software. The more informative the review, the more readers it attracts and the more credible you appear. Your unique insights will be more helpful than the opinions of an analyst or consultant because you have firsthand experience with the product in a business environment.
  • Aim for balance. Even if you love a product, it’s probably not perfect. Your review can include glowing recommendations and commentary on favorite features, but be sure to mention any features that could use improvement or a time the product didn’t work quite as you expected. Readers are likely to place less trust in overwhelmingly positive (or overwhelmingly negative) reviews because they do not present a balanced and realistic account of the user experience.
  • Be real. Along with being balanced, it’s also best to accurately present yourself and your level of experience with the software. Have a unique use case? Share specific examples of how the software has worked for you, and why it is or isn’t a good fit for your company’s needs. Have experience integrating the product with one or more other solutions? Let us know whether the integration has been successful. Reviews that speak to specific situations and use cases (that align with your peers’ priorities) will be that much more relevant and valuable.
  • Stay current. If you haven’t used a product in more than two years, we request that you refrain from submitting a review on it. Between updates and releases of new versions, software can change drastically in a relatively short amount of time; we do not accept reviews based on experiences from more than two years ago.

Tips for software providers

  • Get involved. All providers of B2B software and services have an equal opportunity to take advantage of being part of the Crowd. All vendors can be listed on the site, update their product page, and respond to user reviews free of charge. In fact, we encourage vendors to do so as this promotes transparency.
  • Gather reviews. We encourage all vendors to ask their customers to leave reviews with authentic, unbiased feedback. If G2 Crowd finds evidence of a vendor soliciting only positive reviews, we will remove the reviews. To assist vendors with outreach to their customers, G2 Crowd offers a free service through which we will contact a vendor’s customers on their behalf to ask them to share their authentic feedback on the vendor’s product.
  • Start conversations. We encourage vendors to engage in a dialogue with reviewers and provide vendors with the opportunity to respond publicly to reviews. If a review contains inaccurate or negative commentary, we invite vendors to provide their perspective and address the reviewer’s comments in this forum.
  • Keep us honest. All G2 Crowd users have the ability to report a concern on a review; when this occurs, a G2 Crowd team member will investigate and provide a response. We do not modify or remove reviews at a software provider’s request or act as fact-finders to facilitate disputes between software providers and users; however, we do encourage all users to submit concerns for reviews that seem fake, out of place, or to come from a biased source.
    • Review concerns can be submitted under a review by clicking the “Report a Concern” button. Providing as much relevant information as possible will help us respond thoroughly and accurately.
    • All review concerns will be addressed within two business days.