We all like to feel confident that we are making a good choice when we commit our time or money. That's the driving force behind the exploding popularity of review sites on the Internet. Unfortunately, many of these websites are nothing more than clever schemes to get advertising revenue or sales commissions from the promoted products.

Of course, most website owners offer their sites up for free, and the main payback, besides personal satisfaction, is the advertising revenue they can generate. That's not such a bad thing. The huge popularity of television has to do with this advertising supported model. The primary question about a review site is whether or not the reviews are legitimate, and thus helpful in our decision-making.

Sites that offer only "Editorial" reviews may be legitimate, but give a very limited view. You will have to judge the reviewers on their own merits. It's also worth noting if the reviewers are involved with the promotion of the reviewed products, and if their organization derives revenue from advertising those products. User reviews are harder to find. User review sites are a lot more complex to set up, and require more supervision and maintenance. They need to accommodate reviewers who may struggle with the technology and be able to deal with spammers. But there are a couple of sources available.

For yogis, there several sites around that offer product reviews, but it is rare to find reviews of yoga studios, retreats, workshops and yoga teacher training programs. Rarer yet are user reviews in these categories. So here is a guide to the sites I've been able to locate online.

YogiReviews.com

One of the newer sites, this appears to be the most comprehensive and offers user reviews of yoga classes, studios, workshops, teacher certifications, yoga retreats, mats, clothing, yoga supplies & accessories, videos, CDs, online courses and… well, you name it. There are star-type ratings covering different criteria for each listing type. The search capabilities are good, and everything is organized not only by general categories, but by yoga styles and geographic location (where appropriate). You can also get a list of the top reviewed listings.

Visitors are free to add their own reviews (and can even add new listings if their favorite place or product isn't already listed). It is also possible to comment on an existing review, and even open a discussion. Reviews can be added without an account or logging in, but if you create an account, you can easily access all your reviews, listings, and favorites.

The site is built upon an extensive free yoga directory covering all the categories mentioned above. A free account is required to post a new listing. The author can then edit and update their own listings. New listings and reviews are manually approved by the website editors.

www.YogaJournal.com

Yoga Journal is of course the market leader in the print world of yoga. Their associated website also has a very strong presence. They offer some editorial product reviews, although these are somewhat buried in their Lifestyle section. There is no obvious way to search the review section, but there are links to the most popular and most recent reviews. Reader comments are permitted.

www.expotv.com

If you want to be a video star, here's your chance! This site offers video reviews from users which seem to be really genuine. They can be fun to watch, but it's time consuming to view a video rather than scan through comments. They do have a star rating system which gives you a quick overview, but it doesn't tell you how many people voted to produce the displayed rating.

At the time of this writing (July 2009) there are only 39 video reviews in the yoga category, and there is no sorting or sub-category options, so you have to scroll through a few pages of listings to see what's there.

www.geocities.com/yogasimple/yoga_video_reviews.html

This site at Geocities.com is always near the top of a search for yoga reviews, but unfortunately is limited to short editorial comments about a dozen videos. At least I can applaud the editor's taste – the reviewed videos include some of my favorites.

www.RateYoga.com

This is a very nice site with an attractive design and nice review layout that has a rating system and comments capability. Its only limitation is that it is focused specifically on resources for Ashtanga Yoga. At the time of this writing, there are only 15 items listed. I look forward to seeing this site grow and expand.

yoga.about.com

About.com is a huge, popular site with information on all kinds of topics. Their yoga section does have some reviews of books and videos, although they are a bit frustrating to find. There are links to a few arbitrary reviews on the main yoga page, and some books and video listings have links to reviews underneath them. There are links to add your own review as well.

www.Amazon.com - www.PriceGrabber.com - www.Shopping.com

These, of course, are some of the retail giants that offer price comparisons and/or user reviews. Amazon is probably the most useful of these for yogis, at least as far as yoga books and products go. Amazon shoppers are pretty generous about sharing their opinions. The limitations are that you will only see products sold through Amazon, which excludes a lot of fine, smaller specialty yoga companies. Also, of course, there won't be any mention of studios, retreats, etc.

Other Resources

For retreat centers, you may have some success searching for the specific retreat online – sometimes you can find a review or two on a travel website. Also, the occasional studio or retreat website will have some reviews of their own facility. More about reviews by yogis here.

As more yogis take to the Internet, some of these sites are likely to grow and expand, and new ones will come along. The usefulness of the best review sites comes from the contributions of its visitors. So take a look at some of these sites and leave your comments or reviews – the yogis who follow you there will appreciate your effort and insights.