TrustPilot making me take down all reviews?

[granddesignati]

We have been using Trustpilot for about a review and asking happy customers to leave reviews.
On our website we have the text of a few of the reviews and the trustpilot logo.
Trustpilot have contacted us saying we need to pay £250 a month just to use their logo and share the reviews of our customers.
We could not afford this and they have made us take down all mention of trustpilot.
I have changed the reviews to 3 reviews we have on google business. The same people have reviewed on Trustpilot and Google, and even though I have changed the links to Google and no mention on Trustpilot, they still want us to take those off - this feels ridiculous!

Can they really make us take our 3 reviews down from Google if they are also on TrustPilot?

Such a scam to charge such a huge amount, for a small business it's a fortune! Won't be using TrustPilot any longer

 

[fisicx]

Were you using the trustpilot API to display the reviews or did you just copy the logo and the content of the reviews?

Are the words on the Google reviews the same as the words on the Trustpilot reviews?

 

[Newchodge]

I know. I assume you also provide your services free of charge, as you expect Trustpilot to do?

 

[granddesignati]

We copied the content with no idea that this was not allowed.
When being informed this wasn't allowed we asked about upgrading but obviously couldn't afford the charge and said we would take it down.
We changed to the Google ones which are the same words but obviously are left on Google.

 

[granddesignati]

I know. I assume you also provide your services free of charge, as you expect Trustpilot to do?

We charge a fair price for excellent service. We don't take advantage of small businesses.

 

[fisicx]

You broke the terms and conditions of your contract with trustpilot.

You won’t win this one. Take down all the reviews from your website.

Also note that if you copied the words from Google instead of using their API you could be in trouble with Google.

The reviews belong to Trustpilot and Google not you.

 

[granddesignati]

You broke the terms and conditions of your contract with trustpilot.

You won’t win this one. Take down all the reviews from your website.

Also note that if you copied the words from Google instead of using their API you could be in trouble with Google.

The reviews belong to Trustpilot and Google not you.

Thanks for your help, we will sadly take it down.

£3000 a year just to share reviews on our website is just not something we can do.

 

[fisicx]

If you do it properly there is not problem:

https://support.trustpilot.com/hc/en-us/articles/203840826-Add-a-service-review-TrustBox-widget

Work with review data | Google Business Profile APIs | Google for Developers

developers.google.com

But you use squarespace so you might have a few issues with these.

 

[Ozzy]

Moving on from this, I agree with the advice above, either ask customers for reviews directly to yourself which you can use freely or use a Google plugin for your website to display your Google reviews. Personally I'd cross the road to avoid TrustPilot every time.

In your position I would direct people to leave reviews on Google and use a website plugin to display them, less chance of getting some copyright lawyer on your back that way.

 

[granddesignati]

If you do it properly there is not problem:

Hi I have already taken your advice and changed to Google API, it actually looks a lot better so on the whole will have worked out well once we can build up Google reviews.

Many thanks for your help

 

[tony84]

I agree with trustpilot, it is either free or too expensive for small businesses. I would happily pay £20 a month, but £200 is just too much.

Ask people to leave reviews on google/facebook and then put those reviews on your website. It should not take long to get reviews back on your site.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Whilst looking at this, check you website pictures - did you just take them from the internet or are they yours (or you have permission to use).

 

[granddesignati]

Whilst looking at this, check you website pictures - did you just take them from the internet or are they yours (or you have permission to use).

We have permission for all our pictures and they are 99% ours anyway

 

[Paul Carmen]

There are strong benefits to using reviews platforms other than/as well as Google (or your own processes); e.g. you can show properly marked up product and service reviews as stars in organic search results, Google Business listings, your brand reviews in PPC ads etc, as well as aggregating these with other review sources on your website.

The Trustpilot business model seems good, but is actually only really good for them. Essentially, the reviews on their platform are free for customers to add, but for you to manage/respond to them you have to accept their T&Cs. At that point they own the reviews, and for you to do anything like I described above you end up in an expensive contract.

There are lots of options for running really good trustworthy review programmes, that are much cheaper, and deliver excellent results for a low monthly cost. We'd suggest you move your review process elsewhere ASAP. Feel free to PM me if you're interested and I can send you some free info on how to do this.

Just as an side, there is a way to show the Trustpilot reviews on your site for free, in a limited way as a score only (you can't show them in organic/PPC results or the individual reviews). If you have a look here this explains how to use the free reviews widget: https://support.trustpilot.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019826379-TrustBox-widget-overview

 

[grownlocal]

I personally find Trustpilot to be anti-small business. The free package has been greatly reduced, and the £49 per month package no longer exists. With the free package, you can no longer display the number of reviews on your website, just the "review us on Trustpilot" widget. You can't even format the 'About Us' text on their website anymore, so it looks unappealing. This leaves only the £299 per month package, which is too expensive for most small businesses at the moment.

 

[WillRichards]

TrustPilot's prices are extortionate and unfair. Their plugins and widgets are badly made and slow down websites, and overall have terrible reviews (ha). Many reviews on the platform are fake, including some of their own. The content of user's reviews is owned by the user, not TrustPilot, so you can quote them, but you must follow the correct attribution guidelines (can't share the link to them here, although I would if i could). Do yourselves a favour and avoid this silly company, and collect and display Google reviews instead.

 

[fisicx]

Do yourselves a favour and avoid this silly company, and collect and display Google reviews instead.

Many of which are just as fake. You can buy Google reviews for a few dollars.

 

[WillRichards]

Many of which are just as fake. You can buy Google reviews for a few dollars.

Yes but Google doesn't charge upwards of $200 a month do they? Point >>>>>>> You

 

[fisicx]

Yes but Google doesn't charge upwards of $200 a month do they? Point >>>>>>> You

Or you can use trustpilot for free:

https://support.trustpilot.com/hc/en-us/articles/236051547-Use-Trustpilot-for-free

 

[zomex]

Completely agree about Trustpilot. It is absolute extortion.

I would stick to Google Reviews. Yes they can be faked but so can Trustpiot. I think consumers these days are much better at gauging what is a real vs fake review.

 

[zomex]

Or you can use trustpilot for free:

https://support.trustpilot.com/hc/en-us/articles/236051547-Use-Trustpilot-for-free

That's a sure fire way to end up paying £200+ monthly eventually. You get a free account, spend time collecting reviews. Eventually you will surpass the free plan and either be forced to pay a monthly plan or loose the time you invested.

Using Trustpilot gives full control to them and none to you. You don't own your reviews, they are held to ransom. Google is free and assuming you have a profile setup which correctly displays when searching the company name in my opinion it's more powerful

 

[WillRichards]

Or you can use trustpilot for free:

They give nothing for free.

 

[WillRichards]

That's a sure fire way to end up paying £200+ monthly eventually. You get a free account, spend time collecting reviews. Eventually you will surpass the free plan and either be forced to pay a monthly plan or loose the time you invested.

Using Trustpilot gives full control to them and none to you. You don't own your reviews, they are held to ransom. Google is free and assuming you have a profile setup which correctly displays when searching the company name in my opinion it's more powerful:

Agreed

 

[fisicx]

I also agree that trustpilot can end up being expensive but if you only collect a few reviews each month you will stay well under the 50/month limit.

It's not a platform I'd ever use but I know some have done very well after collecting reviews. Each case is going to be different.

In general though, fake reviews are prevalent on all platforms. and the more reviews you get the higher the chances you will get 'local reviewers' posting their junk on Google. Which is why I don't bother with any of them. I've made it so my business name is not part of my marketing plan.

 

[WillRichards]

I also agree that trustpilot can end up being expensive but if you only collect a few reviews each month you will stay well under the 50/month limit.

It's not a platform I'd ever use but I know some have done very well after collecting reviews. Each case is going to be different.

In general though, fake reviews are prevalent on all platforms. and the more reviews you get the higher the chances you will get 'local reviewers' posting their junk on Google. Which is why I don't bother with any of them. I've made it so my business name is not part of my marketing plan.

I have a client with over 1,200 TP reviews, and a 4.8/5, which is great, but we decided not to go for their expensive plans. Googlers will find the profile page. We also developed a system to harvest genuine and happy reviewers on Google, in a completely legit way, and went from 2.8/5 from 4 reviews, to 4.8/5 and 383 reviews, most of which are 5 stars. it all helps massively, but we find the Google reviews really useful when people search the brand. I installed the TrustPilot widgets once, and the site had peformance issues, so deleted it. After that, we thought, no more TP nonsense. reviews and online reputation management are so important in a marketing strategy to gain trust from the 'cold' audience.