SVR-based outlier detection and its application to hotel ranking

Abstract

With the rapid advance in information technology, more and more information exchange platforms appear. People can freely exchange information on these platforms. However, not all information is reliable. To make correct decisions, it is necessary to detect and remove unreliable information. The main purpose of this study is to improve the reliability of hotel ranking by detecting and deleting outlier on-line reviews. For this purpose, we design a support vector regression (SVR) based outlier detector using existing on-line reviews. Intuitively, normal reviews are regular, and can be correctly labeled by the SVR detector. Outlier reviews, on the other hand, are usually not regular, and cannot be correctly labeled. Thus, a well-designed SVR-detector can help us to delete outlier reviews automatically. Results obtained in this study are useful not only for hotel ranking. In principle it can be good for recommendation of any services.