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Hi Jeff, I would recommend that you gather as many screenshots and as much other evidence as possible. Then, tweet to @GoogleMyBiz and let them know you want to DM them evidence of a concerning case of widespread review spam. Wait for them to DM you back. I don't recommend doing any of this publicly. Confine your communications to DM. All you can do is report it and hope for the best. Google doesn't always act on these reports, regardless of how much evidence you send. If you aren't satisfied with the outcome of your private interaction with Google, you can then make the decision about whether to go public. If an issue is so egregious that it receives a large amount of press, Google can typically be shamed into removing review spam. However, the story has to be fairly sensational to garner that kind of attention. Good luck. Fake reviews are so prevalent and so bad for real-world communities who don't know what they are reading is fake. Hope it goes well for you.

I think that highly depends on the keywords and their nature (research-based, transactional, navigational, etc...) You can check Ahrefs and SEMRush as they can provide an "estimated" value for organic traffic. But its only that, an estimate based on their data. Hope that helps.

The reviews only make a small part of the site's content, so they wouldn't be enough for the page to be marked as duplicate. It is a very common tactic to include reviews from other sites, so it is safe to assume that they won't be of any harm to your rankings. Daniel Rika - Dalerio Consulting https://dalerioconsulting.com/ info@dalerioconsulting.com

Ugh. Yeah - sorry - no more bright ideas forthcoming from our side. I think you have a clear-eyed view of the risks and difficulties of the different options. Sorry I don't have anything more substantial for you. Good luck!

Good news, it has returned without any further actions on my behalf. But I have started to receive some sales via branded search results, so I think we can all safely conclude that this is triggered by brand search CTR. Thanks for your input folks All Best Dan

First of all, I notice 2 main errors the first one is related to the installation of the snippet code, you have repeated the local business schemas. I assume that this is generated by 2 different sources. Checking your code the error is created by the overlapping of the SEO Yoast plugin and Review plugin. The second error that I notice is the JSON-LD code generated by the review plugin which generates 22 errors "Multiple reviews should be accompanied by an aggregate rating". so basically there is no rating on the JSON-LD I strongly suggest you read this documentation https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/review-snippe https://schema.org/Review Also is important to be familiar with the JSON-LD syntax https://json-ld.org/spec/latest/json-ld/ I worked on several projects integrating schemas. So in my opinion, the best way to do that is by using **Google Tag Manager+ Custom Code. Why? because that gives you full control over your schemas  **

Intriguing question. In short yes there is a benefit - in so far as the three-panel reviews that appear are often manip[ulated by likes. So your liking a positive review may push a negative review off the SERP. However, should your staff write false reviews, 100% not, that would not good from an objective perspective?  In Australia it would be a disaster for staff and the business moral, effectively it is imposing your views on your staff on possibly private gmail assets and asking them to publish your views.

Thank you Darin I appreciate your answer and will look to put this in place. Best wishes, Dean

Hi Luciano, Like yourself, we had used TrustPilot for a couple of years but were recommended Reviews.io. We moved about 3 years ago and has genuinely been one of the better business decisions we have made. From the support received through to the actual product/back-end system Reviews.io, in my opinion, are better for our business and are cheaper than we were paying previously, which is a nice bonus! Good luck with whoever you go with. John

Hi Robert, Quick thought on people not bothering to read the subject is I would suggest moving the thumbs up/down button so you can only vote at the bottom of the article (thus assuming you've read it) and this may help stop thumbs down from just title surfing. The only argument I do have for thumbs down is spam now and then it's in the comments so would be nice if we had thumbs removed just an opportunity to flag spammy comments. thanks

You bet, Ken!

Dear Jaime, What you're seeing may well be the result of a filter like Possum that is causing Google to filter out the weaker of the two locations that are only a block away from one another. Particularly if zooming in causes you to be able to see that 2nd West Side business appear, I suspect a filter. I can't say without seeing the query for myself, of course, but that would be my guess based on your description. As you've mentioned, the filtered location has a weaker review signal, and it could be that it has other weaker signals, too (maybe fewer links to its landing page, less accurate citations, etc.). So, that may be all the explanation needed as to why Google is showing one West Side location over the other. You can invest the time/money in building up all signals for the filtered location, but what you can't do is guarantee to the client that Google will then unfilter the location. That's up to Google, not you and not your client, so be sure you set correct expectations surrounding this. Given that your client is multi-location, if they are worried about this scenario, I would ask them to perform an exercise. Ask them to manually search for whatever the keyword is in question from a device located at that filtered location. Given Google's bias towards searcher proximity, it may well be that customers near the filtered location are actually seeing it appear, whereas you - using a tool or a proxy - are getting a view centered in a zip code or at some other point on the map. If nearby customers are seeing the location nearest to them, then there's really no cause for concern. Hope this helps!

OK so the review sites are certainly great for improving your click through rate and influencing your customers etc, but do not assume they will benefit you totally. Review sites (see list of google approved partners here) only automatically benefit Google adverts (CPC) by default and you will need a minimum number to qualify for the star rating. You may get a boost from a high traffic and quality review site organically but like Garrett says - opt for a review site that meets your needs and is also frequented and trusted by your users. Should you wish to benefit from star ratings in the organic results you will still need some technical knowledge to apply aggregate ratings schema to your site and even then it is not guaranteed they will show.

Hi Seorankfuse! You are so right that this is a very serious problem. Google's apparent inaction regarding it could be stemming from two causes that I can think of: They are too comfortable as a result of being a monopoly. When Google entered local search, they did it without the consent of local businesses. Most owners simply found themselves thrown into the deep end of the pool, scrambling towards the realization that their information was now on a highly visible platform. So, basically, you had an entity representing the country's local businesses without their authorization, and Google support was so incredibly lacking back then, it was extremely stressful for owners whose information was wrong, spammed, conflated, hijacked, etc. It hurt real-world local businesses. Google's support has improved quite a bit since those days, but their brand attitude all too often appears not to have changed. I've now read so many stories of business owners who are literally being blackmailed by spammers or having their professional reputation damaged by review spam companies, I'm not at all impressed by Google's response. If their inability to address this scenario stems from a lack of competition, it's an object lesson in why monopolies are bad for the market. Google may simply not know how to manage what they've built. It's a vast body of content they have on their plate. Other review platforms (like Yelp) appear to be far more stringent in the enforcement of guidelines and policing of content, but it could be that Google either lacks the dedicated staff members to manage their review corpus or that their engineers have yet to hit on an algorithmic solution that they're happy with for auto-detecting most forms of spam. I am not an engineer by any stretch of the imagination, but it would basically come down to a combination of identifying suspicious patterns + human support to greatly reduce the damage happening to real-world businesses as a result of Google's uncontrolled spam problem. That's my take on this situation. I agree with you 100% that Google should be publicly addressing this and proffering a timeline of their planned solutions, but this just isn't happening. So, in the meantime, if you, a client or someone you care about is subject to a large-scale review spam attack, my best advice is to utilize PR to the maximum to draw attention to that particular case in hopes of one-off resolution. Not great, but there it is. Further reading: https://twitter.com/JoyanneHawkins/status/1069596742776061952 https://www.localsearchforum.com/threads/4-star-fake-review-issue-over-2-3-million-fake-ratings-on-google.53556/

Tim, It is tough to say where to start on that page if you're going to provide recommendations on how to get the review to show up. I guess I'd start by marking up the single review / rating itself on the page in JSON-LD, as well as the aggregateRating. The review should be about that specific guide, not the company as a whole. Make sure that the review and rating are both viewable on the page, definitely not a thousand pixels off-screen, and preferably without JavaScript rendering. If JS has to be rendered client-side (as is the case of everything but the Facebook pixel in the Noscript tag) then make sure the page can be rendered by Google. As of now, it does not appear to be (see cache link below), but the "Fetch and Render" tool in Search Console is a better way to know for sure. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:GVg0uOtMoUQJ:https://gydeandseek.com/budapest/gabriella+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-1-ab

Hi Dmitrii, Good conversation going on this thread. I will just add, there are some industries where reviews truly aren't prevalent. In such cases, it can help to show the client their competitors' lack of reviews - conclusion being that everyone is in the same boat. Sometimes, however, you find a competitor who is spamming Google with fake reviews, and that looks even stranger! How many people, for example, write reviews about how they love how Mike the bail bondsman got them out of jail because he's the best bails bondsman in the world? I'm just not a fan of anonymous reviews. Most credible review platforms don't allow them. If the nature of the business is so sensitive that customers aren't comfortable leaving third-party reviews, stick to what you can publish on your own website and focus on forms of marketing customers are comfortable with. Industries are different, and sometimes, we have to respect those differences and look beyond generalizations in marketing so that we're doing what really works for brands and their clients.

Hi Virginia, Looks like, yes, there are problematic practices going on here. I'm not an expert schema diagnostician, but I can offer you two suggestion that I believe should help. Read fully through this article on schema markup best practices: https://whitespark.ca/blog/how-to-use-aggregate-review-schema-to-get-stars-in-the-serps/ If you get lost, hire David Deering's company TouchPoint Digital - http://www.touchpointdigitalmarketing.com/ - for some consulting. He's an absolute expert and can help you get your schema into guideline compliance. I hope these resources are useful to you!

Hi @ThompsonPaul, I've just been reading into this as just about everyone in my field use third party reviews and mark it up with snippets. I'm under the impression that Google is fine with the use of third party reviews. In the Google guidelines, it says: "Only include critic reviews that have been directly produced by your site, not reviews from third-party sites or syndicated reviews." I am under the belief if you are not using a critic review then you are safe to use third-party reviews. Refer to the bottom of the guidelines for the Review Snippet Guidelines rather than the Critic Review Guidelines Especially because our team has experienced Third Party Reviews being approved by Google.When we originally put in the mark up we got a penalty for another reason (Developer incorrectly released on all pages). Google then reviewed our mark up approving the use of third party reviews and removed our penalty. I'd love to know your thoughts! Let me know

Hi Anthony, Thanks so much for answering my questions. When you wrote, "There is other groomers that have 2.4 stars and are shown on the local pack while we aren't.. I just don't get it. They are also right next to us so location isn't the problem." .... my first thought was that you might be being impacted by the Possum filter. This filter specifically has the effect of filtering out businesses that are in the same building or couple of blocks with other businesses in the same business category. However, when I do a search for "dog grooming des plaines il", your listing is not being filtered out at the automatic zoom level of the map (which would be diagnostic of this being Possum). I see you ranking in the 8th position when I click on the Google Map in the local pack and look at the Local Finder view. So, while this isn't a straight-up case of Possum, because your listing is visible but is simply ranking lower than competitors, what I do see is that you are in a location that is very densely populated with dog groomers. Google is having to choose between a whole bunch of competitors located within a very tiny area, and - for some reason - they are choosing your competitors over you. And I concur with you that the fact that you are ranking #1 organically for this term, but are not #1 in the local pack is weird. I have some specific recommendations for you, which I'll number: I recommend that you go through the exercise of doing a competitive audit between yourself and the top ranking business in the local pack. Here is a blog post of mine, including a spreadsheet, which will walk you through that process: https://moz.com/blog/basic-local-competitive-audit I just ran your business through Moz Check Listing and your citations look in great shape, with the exception of a few duplicate listings you should fix: https://moz.com/local/details/JTI1N0IlMjUyMmxvY2F0aW9uX2lkJTI1MjIlMjUzQSUyNTIyNGE1ZjJjMDAtNzE2Yi0xMWU3LTgzOWMtZjUyMzYzMTM5ZWY0JTI1MjIlMjU3RA== I highly recommend that you equip the franchisee at that location to answer the Google Q&A the business received and that they start using Google Posts on a weekly basis, as both could possibly start to bump up local rankings for this location. I recommend that you look further into populating Google Q&A with some of this location's FAQs, as well as answering public Qs that come in. Finally, I recommend you take a look at this post by Joy Hawkins from a couple of years ago regarding ranking highly organically but not in the local packs. Not sure it's applicable to your scenario, but it would be worth reading in case any of it rings a bell to you: https://searchengineland.com/rank-high-organically-not-locally-case-study-240692 Please, feel free to come back with further questions!