There is an active thread on this Forum regarding how to screenshot your reviews, include those screenshots in your profile, and even perhaps have a website for showing off your reviews.
While that might have been a reasonable idea a decade ago, in today’s world screenshotted reviews are often viewed with high suspicion. Part of the value of the THS platform is in the confidence members can place in the linked and verified review process. Taking a review outside of that process - even with something as simple as a screenshot - erodes trust and reliability.
Below are two examples of completely fake reviews based on a post in that other thread. Anyone who wants to know how to do this can simply google it; it takes five steps and three minutes, and no special software is needed.
Per the advice of the OP of that other thread, I started a standalone topic rather than intermingle it with the other.
I totally agree, but the difference is, the other sitter is a real sitter, even the majority of people on the forum are REAL sitters with REAL profiles and REAL reviews, and the pet parents on here aren’t trusting screenshots at all, they are trusting their THS profile.
We recently copied our own reviews and display them on our website to share our story, because if an owner leaves, it removes the lovely words they wrote about us.
While there are a lot of fake reviews out there, the majority on this forum don’t rely on screenshots at all, whether pet parents or sitters. If this was a generic pet sitting site it would be different.
..might be missing the rationale here, but what would be the purpose of creating such a website? Wasn’t the other post about the possibility of technically losing access to one’s account and reviews?
Good question - we joined THS 2.5 years ago as sitters and it’s changed our lives. So we created a website to help others to discover THS too, because we know if would have been brilliant if we had known about it back when we had pets too.
The THS site is full of sales-stuff, and the forum is full of negative stuff, which actually hasn’t been our experience at all, it’s been brilliant, with lovely pet parents. So by telling our own story, we can help others understand what it’s all about from our perspective.
We tell the true story of how during our first 2 years, we’d gained 6 years free with THS (refer-a-friend), along with other amazing things too, so it helps people get over the initial cost barrier.
We chat with so many people about THS on a day to day basis while out dog walking or in random cafes & pubs, it was just eating into our own time just a little too much. We love helping people, but sometimes we just don’t have the time to be able to chat as long as they’d like us too…. and so our website was born
What a great story—you’re so right that explaining it all can get time-consuming. I even made little cards to hand out, though I never really thought about what people see once they land on the main site. Sure, it can feel a bit sales-y, but I don’t have the time (or interest) to run my own website.
For me, THS has been nothing but positive—I’ve never had a bad sit, and it’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. All the cats, all the time! The forum can lean negative, but that’s just like the news: good stories don’t make headlines. I think the best stories are in the reviews themselves. My real motivation for spreading the word is simply to bring more people in—more homes, more sitters, better for all of us. The fee savings are just a bonus. So if you do that via your own website, more power to you!
Ah, I see, thought you meant taking screenshots of reviews and similar from the site to use elsewhere, which would be a different story
Actually did that a bit too in the beginning, but not anymore - the promotional content is simply too far away from reality to do that.
Hadn’t considered referrals and the like, think the price is already quite reasonable - for me, it’s the cost one can end up paying due to how the concept is marketed that feels rather high. That may well evolve given the broader situation in the States, but that’s another discussion altogether
Two of my previous HOs now no longer have an account on THS. And the more recent one’s review disappeared, while the number of stars remained. But the earlier one from 2022 has remained in full.
So do HO’s have the choice of whether to leave their previous reviews visible on sitters’ profiles?
Or has the site function changed, so they used to remain in full, but now they don’t?
Good question - we joined THS 2.5 years ago as sitters and it’s changed our lives. So we created a website to help others to discover THS too, because we know if would have been brilliant if we had known about it back when we had pets too.
