How to deal with fake review posted on ripoffreport.com by a competitor.

[erickcalderon]

In 2010 we launched a product update (physical product) that was really good for us in sales and we were taking a lot of business from our main competitor. To stop the bleeding they posted a fake ripoffreport (completely made up pretending to be a former employee, we are a family business and employ few people with almost no turn over in the last 10 years). They also posted fake reviews on Google's local product at the time for any store that used to use their product but that had switched to ours.

We were able to get google to remove the fake reviews as there was no way one user visited over 100 stores and purchased the same service on the same day in all these locations around the US. But they would do nothing about delisting the report page without a court order.

So the fake google reviews went away, but the ripoffreport has become immortal. The reviews were originally posted anonymously and then commented on by another anonymous user. These same two anonymous users then filed ripoffreports against a couple of our mutual customers as well. Since they are anonymous we cannot sue anyone to get them to remove it, since it is passed the statutes of limitations we cannot do a john doe law suit to get a judgment by default. So the report is there to stay.

We have worked to get more content up about us, we have great product reviews on facebook and other outlets that have sold and spotlighted our products, and we are partnering with industry specific bloggers and traditional media content sites to get links and reviews (all white hat stuff, great public relations stuff), but we cannot get our interior pages, facebook pages, or the other reviews to rank higher than this report when searching for our brand name and even worse when you search for our "brand name reviews" it is the first result on google.

Can anyone help me understand how I can use MOZ to help me identify how to outrank this page with interior pages so that it falls off the front page of google? Sorry if that is a newbie question but I have done a lot of things and it has worked some but not as much as I need it to. And it seems that in the last few weeks the report has become stronger in the rankings again.

Any suggestions you could offer would be greatly appreciated.

[Hannah_Smith]

Hey Erick,

So it's tricky for me to answer your question definitively, but it's worth highlighting that both Moz metrics and Majestic metrics are simply there as a guide to relative page strength. Weak pages on strong domains frequently outrank stronger pages on weaker domains if that makes sense.

Additionally, Google take many factors into account when ranking pages - not just links. As I mentioned above, from a user's perspective that page is a 'good result' for reviews; hence Google tend to rank pages like that well. As such I suspect you may struggle to outrank the page.

If I were you, I wouldn't reach out to the blogger to ask them to delete the link. The danger is that (as you said) you start a whole new firestorm and attract a bunch more links to the ROR page. I suspect it's not that link that's making a difference in any case, so even if you did get it removed, it's likely that the page will still rank.

Cheers

Hannah

[erickcalderon]

Thanks for the link! I appreciate it, interesting that the person that they are interviewing is the ROR lawyer

I think the worst advice we got when this all started in 2010 was "Just ignore it, don't respond because you give it credibility". And I was stupid for believing that. Over the years it has been a huge thorn in our side with new business and a battle we keep having to fight every 6 months to try to bury it off the first page.

It's interesting you mention the ROR sites strength. I see its DA is high, but the page in question has no PA. and Trust Flow is 0 and Citation Flow is 11 from Majestic. This ROR page outranks us even though the link profile for the ROR page is non existent. 1 link to it in the last 60 days with DA of 16, PA of 13 and TF of 0 from the Linker. Yet it ranks. Does that change your thoughts on out ranking it? Just curious as I am just learning this all and those numbers seem week to me?

We are again optimizing our SEO on all our site pages to help us rank better, but in the past we were only able to get it down to number 8 when you search [brand name], so not off the front page. And if you search [brand name] review it has always stayed in the top 5, and now is ranking #1 and the only reason I can see is this bloggers link to it.

I am going to reach out to the blogger to see if they will delete the link, but I am not sure if that will start a different fire storm.

If any other business owners ever comes across this post I hope that they respond quickly to the negative reviews with a short professional response, and then be ready to answer the question when customers call. Also one of the things we had to learn the hard way is that as a business even a non technical/internet business you need to do online reputation management before something like this happens. Build up your good reputation so it is hard to tear it down. In our face to face business our reputation is stellar, online the first thing you see is this.

Thanks again for your comments and links. I appreciate you taking the time.

Cheers,
Erick

[erickcalderon]

Thanks Alick,

Interesting that they were gone and then back so fast! Good link on ORM too, thank you.

I think it's strange the ROR itself is not penalized by google and delisted, I believe they violate the google TOS. Google search team doesn't seem to answer that  question about ROR either, it always turns into a debate of free speech and internet laws... it's really unfortunate for businesses that are wrongly attacked on these types of forums and can't get high enough DA and TF or good links to outrank for their own brand names.  I think google needs to understand that non tech businesses have a disadvantage in todays search eco system, and soon they will only have tech savvy results while real business solutions will be buried.

Thanks again! Cheers!
Erick

[Hannah_Smith]

Hi Erick,

First up, it may be worth you reading this to see if there's anything else you can do legally: http://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2014/11/10/when-a-ripoff-report-strikes-your-business-follow-these-steps

You asked if it might be possible to get one of your own interior pages to outrank the Ripoff Report page. The answer is yes, it might be possible, but I suspect it's unlikely. Ripoff Report is a strong domain, and your own site probably isn't strong enough to knock Ripoff Report from the 1st page. Moreover, for a search query like '[brand name] reviews' Google will want to show results from a variety of sites, not just your own. I recognise this is potentially bad for your company, but from a user's perspective it's a better search experience.

If you feel like it's actively damaging your business you might consider hiring a company to help. There are a bunch of agencies who offer reputation management on the Moz recommended companies list here.

I hope this helps,

Hannah

[Alick300]

Hi Erick,

ripoffreport destroying many online business since long time and it doesn't go easily. Couple of days back ripoffreport was de indexed by Google but after few hours relisted in Google.

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-ripoff-report-index-20788.html

ripoffreport reviews can be removed by strong ORM but not very sure many people have the same issue.

To know more about ORM please check @ https://blog.kissmetrics.com/guide-to-reputation-management/

Thanks