Local Hotel Reviews/Citations and the ISP address

[hawkvt1]

Happy New Year Mozzers,

If a hotel guest signs into the free wireless provider that is provided by the hotel and writes a review of the hotel while logged in, by chance will Google perceive this as hotel staff writing phony reviews to hype the hotel?  I ask this because I wonder if Google will view the ISP address as the hotel ISP and not differentiate a hotel guest versus the hotel staff.

Thanks everyone!

[rosstaylor]

This is something I read back in early December, though I have no hard data on this... so consider it hearsay for now.

Google are apparently trying to make the places system more robust by introducing a real places support team and are rolling it out slowly. These "technical reps" started in Kansas City and recently answered a few questions including yours.

_Google is going to begin advocating to businesses that they set up computers/workstations where clients can post live reviews in their place of business.  There is no penalty for "same IP address" moving forward, assuming a "reasonable number".  The technical Places sales rep indicated 10 or less per would be acceptable, and more if the business type warranted it.  _

There algorithm will flag more than 10 a day.

[MiriamEllis]

Hello Hawkvt1!

Thanks for coming to Q&A with your question. I'm the Local SEO Associate here in the forum and will do my best to give you some helpful feedback.

Thumbs up for Ross for remembering the slight stir created a few weeks ago regarding this very topic. Mike Blumenthal wrote a good piece on this here:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2011/12/06/google-places-onsite-review-stations-aok-with-google/

Read the whole article. And definitely read the comments that follow it, too. This should give you a good summary of the issue.

Like Mike, I felt that Google's encouragement of this practice was a poor choice because of the wide door it is opening for abuse. This practice has never been viewed in the past as appropriate by any review index, and there has been some evidence that some review entities were using signals of this as a way to weed out spam.  I am not actually recommending this practice to my own clients at this point, but according to Google, it's okay.

You will need to make a judgement call on this. If you feel the benefits are substantial, you can go forward with Google's apparent sanction, but I remain wary. Hope my thoughts help!

Miriam

[hawkvt1]

Thanks for the answers!  Sheesh, it never even occurred to me to think of sites like Trip and Yelp.

Very helpful, as always the decision rests with the client, I can only provide as much insight as possible.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Hawktv1, So glad to know you've found some helpful guidance on this topic. You asked a very good question! Miriam