Gamerankings.com apparently belongs to the CNET NETWORKS ENTERTAINMENT which is associated with Gamespot.
You can' t really blame them for not checking up on every single site they have. Logically, if enough reviews from sites are collected then all the non-representative review-sites wouldn' t make much of a difference.
The site itself cannot act as a controlling authority as there are too many sites and too much work to be done with.
The only thing that can make the rankings as reliable as possible is that as many of the major games sites as possible applies for recognition in the rankings.
EDIT: Hmm, checked the gamerankings FAQ and it actually seems they have some kind of criteria that must be met in order to be part of the rankings.
Site Inclusion Policy
Q. What does it take to get a site included in the composite score of Game Rankings?
A. This is the most commonly asked question. The things we look for when adding a new site are:
At Least 300 archived reviews if they review multiple systems or 100 reviews if they concentrate on only one system or genre.
The site does at least 15 reviews a month.
The site is visually appealing and looks professional.
The site reviews a variety of titles.
The site has it' s own domain name and is not hosted on GeoCities or another free server.
The reviews need to be well written.
The site conducts itself in a professional manner.
So it seems they ARE in fact controlling the sites. I guess they cannot simply choose to remove netjak (what a shitty ME review, thankfully there was a " second thought" review which gave a much better score) becuase of one inaccurate review. That would be personal bias from gamerankings' side as they need to remain neutral in their selection of sites in order to be reliable.
< Message edited by ginjirou -- 29 Dec 07 20:23:46 >