Google Local Reviews : Creating a Recipricol Reviewing Network

[RickyShockley]

Hi All!

I recently came across an invitation for a group on Facebook (created by an internet marketer likely trying to drum up business) that is designed to get a bunch of business professionals to leave reviews for each other (not  knowing each other or having worked with one another in any way) in an attempt to build good review profiles on Google local for all.

Obviously this is frowned upon, but is it actually dangerous at this point? Are there filters or methods Google has to identify and punish businesses for this type of activity?

As someone who always tries to do the right thing, it makes my skin boil when the scammers in our industry use manipulative tactics like this and even more annoyed when they actually work!

Look forward to any specific info you all have on this.

-Ricky

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Ricky,

Your gut feeling on this rings true with me. Not a good practice. Google's review policy states:

We’ll remove content that violates any of the content policies below:

• Advertising: Don’t use reviews for advertising, such as adding links to other websites or phone numbers. Reviews should be a genuine reflection of your experience with a place - don't post reviews just to manipulate a place's ratings.
• Conflict of interest: Reviews are most valuable when they are honest and unbiased. If you own or work at a place, please don’t review your own business or employer. Don’t offer or accept money, products, or services to write reviews for a business or to write negative reviews about a competitor. If you're a business owner, don't set up review stations or kiosks at your place of business just to ask for reviews written at your place of business.
• Impersonation: Don’t post reviews on behalf of others or misrepresent your identity or connection with the place you’re reviewing.

So, Google's policy explicitly states that they will remove content they feel was created by any person misrepresenting themselves as a customer in order to artificially inflate the reviews of another business. This indicates that Google has a way of assessing this.

Facebook makes similar statements, including:

Ratings and reviews must follow the Facebook Community Standards, focus on the product or service offered by the Page and be based on personal experience. Reviews that don't follow these guidelines may be removed.

So, again, this platform is emphasizing that a review must be based on personal experience and may be removed by Facebook if it doesn't conform to this policy.

You'll find similar policies on pretty much any major review platform.

Here's the most recent case of crackdown I can think of: http://www.localsearchforum.com/internet-marketing/32983-yelp-warns-its-users-shows-evidence.html

And Yelp has sued business owners for alleged fake reviews: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/yelp-sues-small-san-diego-law-firm-over-alleged-fake-reviews/

And NY law enforcement has gotten into the act on occasion as well: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/technology/give-yourself-4-stars-online-it-might-cost-you.html?_r=0

And Google has been quoted as saying, "While we take down thousands of false entries each month, there is a small subset of bad apples out there." see: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/yelp-google-and-urbanspoon-targets-for-fake-reviews-1.2826154 (emphasis mine)

And Mike Blumenthal has written some posts on this I've never forgotten: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2013/08/09/in-search-of-the-purchased-google-review-yours-for-1-40-ea/

So, both on-line and legal consequences can be the result of spammy review practices. These are just a few cases I've thought of. I'm sure you can find a ton more. My take on this is that most platforms have policies precisely targetting fake reviews, but their ability to actually police this stuff is likely not up to the task, considering the prevalence of spammy activities like the review farm you've been looking at. Hope this helps!

[RickyShockley]

Thanks Miriam!