TripAdvisor is celebrating after reaching a half a billion travel reviews milestone on the site – with nearly 300 hitting the site every minute.

The company, now 17 years old, says it has “revolutionised the travel industry” with its mix of ratings and opinions about hotels and, more recently, restaurants and attractions.

But the process by which it collects reviews from travellers (different from other sites that only solicit feedback from actual customers after they’ve taken a trip) has dogged TripAdvisor since its inception.

Critics have highlighted how the system can be “gamed” by competitors of a hotel or other product, or by review optimisation companies that pose as individuals to talk-up a service and increase its overall ranking on the site.

To coincide with reaching the 500 million review mark, TripAdvisor has produced a video to outline the methods it goes through to counteract attempts to post fraudulent reviews on the site.

Forensics, it says, CSI-style.