The latest scorecard? Expedia has 7.5 million hotel reviews and ex-subsidiary TripAdvisor counts 60 million.
And, the gap will not be closing anytime soon.
Expedia revamped its verified hotel reviews -- "They paid and stayed. We double-checked." -- and fortified their numbers by adding reviews from subsidiary Hotels.com into the mix.
As reported, Expedia now also lets verified guests post their own photos of the property they stayed in, and in another new wrinkle, enables review writers to target them to families, business travelers, couples, students and a wide-open "other" category.
These categories are similar to TripAdvisor's -- business, couples, families, friends, and solo -- although TripAdvisor also enables users to search reviews based on keywords such as "Flat screen TV," "Bed Bug," "High Floor," Very Nice," "Room Service" and many more.
So Expedia is beefing up its reviews, which can't hurt search engine optimization with frenemy Google. But Expedia's review count will forever lag the spun-off TripAdvisor's review collection (barring an unimaginable string of acquisitions) because unverified reviews will always have the volume edge over critiques written by paying customers of Expedia and Hotels.com.
But, perhaps Expedia will win the all-important trust factor.
And, as Expedia ramps up its verified reviews, it will be interesting to see if some hoteliers will level complaints about them in a manner similar to the way they have directed their ire at TripAdvisor's reviews.
It says much about Expedia's strategy that it could have easily integrated TripAdvisor reviews, but has chosen not to.