Behind any part of the Chinese internet that relies on mass engagement, there lies a shadow ecosystem of vendors and buyers peddling fake content to drive traffic and make money.

Chinese travel site Mafengwo — dubbed China’s answer to TripAdvisor — is the latest company to find itself accused of facilitating fake forms of engagement. The firm tacitly allows registered merchants to place spurious orders in order to beef up their onsite rankings and attract more views, multiple sources told Caixin.

Mafengwo touts user-generated content as a major selling point. User reviews of restaurants, hotels, destinations, and local activities, help self-guided travelers schedule their trips more efficiently, the company says. The nine-year-old Beijing-headquartered firm generates revenue through ad placements — making it reliant on users clicking on reviews — and earns commissions from hotel bookings and other orders.

Since the end of 2018, however, the company has turned a blind eye to user malpractice, allowing fake reviews and orders to proliferate, several Mafengwo merchants told Caixin.

Part of the problem is Mafengwo’s vendor ranking system, according to merchant Zhang Miao. Zhang claims that Mafengwo marketing staff told him that during off-seasons, the site prioritizes merchants with higher conversion rates — the order volume divided by the total number of clicks — in order to generate more traffic.

The strategy has given rise to vicious competition between merchants, some of whom seek to artificially inflate their conversion rates, another Mafengwo merchant, Li Zhongping, told Caixin. While fake orders may account for around 10% of all orders on competitor site Feizhu, that proportion is approximately 30% on Mafengwo, he claims.

Responding to the allegations, a spokesperson for Mafengwo told Caixin that the company had upgraded its risk-control systems and capabilities several times this year, and regularly updates its protocols for controlling fake traffic on its website.

Read the full story on Caixin Global later today.

Contact reporter Tang Ziyi (ziyitang@caixin.com)

Related: In Depth: The Fake Engagement Powering China's Internet