Fake Reviews: Named and Shamed

[webgeek]

If you've considered, or are considering, either paying someone to provide your company with bogus reviews, or even if you're just giving customers an incentive to provide a positive review, lookout!

http://searchenginewatch.com/articl...rms-Sting-Operations-to-Clean-up-Paid-Reviews

Having only 'caught' 285 companies on Yelp thus far, it's not exactly a huge sting operation. However, it is a sign of things happening and about to happen. Fake reviews, both positive and negative, have plagued business owners and review site owners for some time. As companies get better at detecting the fakes, those who overdid it or went with the cheapest service they could find, will soon be facing the music.

The penalty? On Yelp it's a 3 month name and shame about what you did.

Knowing that a business could have it's profits and reputation hampered by a 3 month name and shame and that all it takes to get such a thing is a number of fake reviews, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that negative reviews can and will be used like negative SEO tools.

It pays to monitor your reputation/reviews just as it does your backlinks, since negative tactics are sometimes used by the unscrupulous, and sometimes errors or erroneous information can get linked to the wrong company and it need correction.

 

[zigojacko]

Yelp hasn't taken off in the UK nowhere near as much as in the US or other countries. I bet there are very few businesses on here that are even utilising Yelp for anything or even have their business listed on there.

I wouldn't blame them either, their website structure and login authentication process is a mess.

 

[deniser]

I wouldn't blame them either, their website structure and login authentication process is a mess.

And their terms and conditions are very unclear.

 

[zigojacko]

And their terms and conditions are very unclear.

Yes, that doesn't surprise me either.

 

[Scotty71]

Few things surprise me with regard to reviews and any move to clean this up is welcome in my humble opinion.

We're working with someone who spent a number of years working for a local SEO company. This company would regularly monitor their reviews and come down very heavily on anyone who posted a detrimental review, threatening them with legal action for libel. Needless to say, few wanted to be involved in this and simply withdrew their reviews.

I've got to say it just goes to echo our own experiences with some of the larger SEO companies, it's just a shame that these bully-boy tactics give them a very unfair and unjustified advantage above smaller (and much more effective) SEO specialists.

 

[10032012]

@webgeek Its good that they are taking this stance BUT who is going to pay for fake reviews on yelp?

Its tripadvisor, industry-focused sites, Google Plus and the like, where you would want to pay for fake reviews (if that is the case)...

 

[webgeek]

Now that Google is aggregating reviews, or working to do so, reviews pulled in from any site Google deems legit could indeed impact an online buyer. Some may be more powerful than others, sure, but fake reviews can carry weight. Enough negative fake reviews and a prospect will quickly believe that the company has issues with products/service.

 

[10032012]

Fair comment, but like I wrote on here somewhere, reviews are good in principle but are open to abuse. I don't trust most reviews - its not even the manufacturer/retailer... read on Argos or Amazon and you lose the will to live when someone completely stupid writes a review.

"Sent this item back as it doesn't make very good toast" ... item? A kettle!! Of course it doesn't...

 

[jdluckhurst]

I have been looking at this recently after a client got in touch about a company that got you reviews - although when I looked online there was some noise about fake reviews (although they were probably reviews themselves!). Tripadvisor is notorious for fake reviews. Unless they are specialist products, it is very hard indeed to trust reviews.

 

[UKSBD]

Google+ reviews are getting abused left right and centre.
The problem is the reviewers get rewarded.
This guy is classed as a Top Reviewer - https://plus.google.com/100904572810843520911/reviews

 

[10032012]

Google+ reviews are getting abused left right and centre.
The problem is the reviewers get rewarded.
This guy is classed as a Top Reviewer - https://plus.google.com/100904572810843520911/reviews

I will tell you what is worse than both tripadvisor and google plus for fake reviews... Google Play! Damn...

Google is overlooking the fake reviews because no one were really taking to Google Plus to make reviews and thus they couldn't integrate this into Search and Maps. 9 times out of 10, I click a review from Maps or Search, and the business actually either have no reviews or a few less than on the map. Caching is likely to cause variations between the advertised number and actual... but surely the maps will then show fewer reviews than actual, which must be more common than reviews being deleted?

 

[seomasters1]

Google Plus seems to be the biggest problems for some of my clients. Since they have included the review business section on the right hand side of the Google search listing for businesses, rival companies have been able to hire people to write bad review about their site. Hopefully this will be something that is cleaned up very soon.

 

[10032012]

Well, Google who was in trouble for favouring their products in search results, will become liable for these reviews if they are to give it such prominent position. people do not want to see a review unless they specifically search for it.

One thing I always felt wrong was how if you searched for a website (i.e. without the www or domain extension, that despite it coming first in results also shows the adwords advert above it... this is always a faint background which sometimes doesn't appear to be an advert... do the companies pay when this is clicked? (i.e. if I searched for "Amazon" and clicked the amazon advert just above, do Google get paid?) What is worse when Google allows you to bid against a company's name or brand.

 

[Scotty71]

One thing I always felt wrong was how if you searched for a website (i.e. without the www or domain extension, that despite it coming first in results also shows the adwords advert above it... this is always a faint background which sometimes doesn't appear to be an advert... do the companies pay when this is clicked? (i.e. if I searched for "Amazon" and clicked the amazon advert just above, do Google get paid?) What is worse when Google allows you to bid against a company's name or brand.

PPC !

An important tool in many a website's portfolio if they don't have good rankings (or even sometimes to support them if they do).

 

[10032012]

PPC !

An important tool in many a website's portfolio if they don't have good rankings (or even sometimes to support them if they do).

I mean do Google exempt the advertiser from any cost for clicks that come directly from:-

• An advert directly above their position 1 listing, where...
• The search is directly for the company name or brand name

I am not talking about an advert display on the right, but conveniently above (that is the bottom advert above the listings) the first page position.

The job of the search engine is to provide a tool of finding content. The adverts are there for what you cannot find so easily. However, does Google have a defence for showing adverts and (potentially) making money from it, when people are unable to append .com to words like "Amazon"? or do Amazon actually pay for adverts specifically on that keyword despite being #1? i never understood it.

 

[Noridc]

Maybe it will help you: we have launched an automatic tool that allows to suppress any negative reviews that appear in Google search. Here you can enter your keyphrase and get an instant quote: linkwiper.com

Please post your opinions.