Want to use Google Business Pages but Spam Reviews are putting me off
-
Not sure if I am missing something here...I have phoned and asked Google business how they deal with reviews which are potentially fake and damaging to a business reputation, it seems there is very little a small local business can do about them other than report the review with no guarantee of anyone helping ...Has anyone else had this issue as I would really like to use this service to assist with rankings on google? It is hard to convince (and to be honest I don't want to have to convince!) a local business that this is a good service at the same time as informing them they will more than likely have to spend extra time fending off fake reviews...Not seen any good answers anywhere else, ignoring the reviews, adding more positive reviews or replying/managing reviews are not an option.
Hope someone can help with this, thanks
-
Thanks Miriam, much appreciated. I'll check it out see how I get on
-
Hi Ian,
I can understand how you feel about this, and yes, these policies do often seem to favor the reviewer over the business owner, which really isn't fair. Some platforms are better than others at listening to spam complaints. With Google, it has been such a long haul to get them to the point where they've started to understand that they needed to offer some kind of support for their local product (at all!), that I am not surprised that you are getting generic answers to your queries about a spam review.One other thing you might try ... check out Joy Hawkin's post about Twitter-based Google support: http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-local-important/38665-new-google-my-business-support-via-twitter-tweet-ghelp.html
If you could prove to them that the user was not a customer, perhaps you might get a more custom response from the support staff. Just a thought.
-
Hi Miriam,
Thanks for the reply.
Yes by "this service" I meant I am looking at setting up Google Business pages, Facebook etc for my clients...getting social !
It is difficult and I have noticed that, as you say, there may already be "profiles out there with your business name on them" The review one of my clients has received is from 5 months ago even though the google page has only been live 2 weeks?...maybe there already was a profile in existence. I asked google if there are any checks carried out on reviewers locations as if the reviewer is not local to my client i.e. lives on the other side of the world, it is obviously fake due to the content. They said they operate an equal rights policy, which I did not understand how that was an answer to my question. In any case the rights are definitely heavily waited towards protecting everyone except small local businesses. Many businesses are simply doing their day to day job which is more than enough, without having to come home jump on a computer to see someone attacking their livelihood without them having any real fear of getting caught.
If there was a clear route to appeal and a specific timeline as to when issues with reviews will be dealt with (i.e. that day, not 4-6 weeks later when the damage is done), I think I would feel a lot more at ease.
Genuine negative reviews I understand, but then if it is genuine the phone number is on the website on the google page, pick up the phone/send an email direct, talk to someone, no response, go right ahead write a bad review.
Fake/Spam/Competitor driven, there should be some way of dealing with this, which isn't so difficult. Responding to spam I fear would invite more, so I guess ignore and get more positive reviews is the best option.
Thanks again for your response
Ian
-
Hi Ian,
Thanks for starting a good topic. I would like to ask for clarification as to what you mean by 'this service'. Are you saying someone is offering a some sort of review service, or are you simply talking about setting up profiles for your clients on sites like Google, Yelp, and Facebook in order to earn some reviews?
If the latter, then common advice here is going to be that fear of negative reviews should never deter a business from building the citations and review profiles necessary to achieving local search visibility. And the fact of the matter is, even if you don't actively build citations, they can get automated for you, meaning that you may already have profiles out there with your business name on them, and with reviews on them, that you'd be ignoring if you don't investigate and take an active part.
Yes, it's reality that a business is likely to get negative reviews, at some point, and yes, you are totally correct that fake and spam reviews do happen. Most review platforms have a TOS which, if violated, can be grounds for getting a review removed (for example, a review containing a racial epithet or discussing illegal behavior) but, in many cases, no, platforms will not remove negative reviews, in which case, you can either respond to the negative review and explain why it is fake, seek legal council, or, do the thing you've already mentioned which is to try to overbalance the negative review with many more positive reviews.
It may be helpful to remember that all of your direct competitors are in the same boat. They, too, are all at risk for receiving fake reviews. And, if that doesn't help, there have been highly publicized cases in which raising enough of a fuss in the right places has caused the big players to take down spam, because they are responding to the publicity.
Hopefully, that last thing wouldn't be something you'd ever need to do, but, it does exist as a last resort in an egregious case of review spam that you've been unable to address by any other method.
I hope you'll get more feedback on this!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What is the best practice way to attribute a Google Review?
An example might be a local directory site, where multiple businesses are featured. To flesh out the respective business profiles, Google Reviews are included. Copying/pasting would be the definition of duplicate content. I wonder though if hyperlinking to the review itself would be enough? For a random example: "you literally have never had better ice cream. cutest shop in charleston sc" - Mandee Jalbert, Google Review Google doesn't appear to have a review embed option- am I wrong? If not, would the above attribution via the "Google Review" hyperlink be sufficient to head off any potential dings for duplicate content? Thanks! Stephen
Reviews and Ratings | | PerfectPitchConcepts
Thanks for your thoughts! I feel like this might make for a good presentation at our SoundBoard conference someday soon.0 -
Reviews for Plastic Surgeons and Other Businesses where Anonymity is preferred
Howdy, fellow mozzers. I would like to hear some thoughts on how to go about review generation for industries, where anonymity is preferred - like plastic surgery, DUI/DWI law, even intimate-related stores etc. Far not everyone would want to have their profile attached to a plastic surgery procedure, especially in private areas; or have their face by a review about them getting out of jail for drunk driving etc. We have clients in those industries and many clients of theirs would love to leave reviews, as long as they don't have to login with Google or other accounts. We sure use those testimonials on the website, but, again, faceless testimonials can look fake. Any advice?
Reviews and Ratings | | DmitriiK1 -
PPC: How do we get our reviews into AdWords?
Hi there, I know that Google have sadly discontinued ratings extension in AdWords but does anyone know a get-around for this? If possible, we'd like to show off the good reviews we have from Google My Business' Knowledge Panel in our ads. We're an online product/service so I don't want to link GMB through the location extension if possible (it doesn't make sense for anyone to pay us a visit in real life). Is there a better way of linking our AdWords to our GMB or is there an alternative extension/ AdWords feature we can use to get review ratings in our ad? Thanks 🙂
Reviews and Ratings | | Fubra0 -
Google Review Guidelines update.
OK Moz peeps... Right then, I have just been reading an article over on SEO RoundTable from Barry Schwartz. NEW Local review guidelines for businesses - take a look. It in effect alludes to Google stamping all over review schema and snippets, third party review solutions/providers and really trying to limit how they are used. I have interpreted the new guidelines to say that you can no longer mark up and use external stats on your own site in the form of aggregate ratings from the likes of TrustPilot, Feefo, Revoo (some uk review sites) and more.... These were the two key lines for more Only include reviews that have been directly produced by your site, not reviews from third-party sites or syndicated reviews. Aggregators or content providers must have no commercial agreements paid or otherwise with businesses to provide reviews. What does everyone else think? and how soon before people get penalised (if ever) for marking up external stats to make your own site and services look more favourable... Could definately be a slap in the face for Serp CTR and onpage conversion optimisation. Also how do people expect this to affect PPC review rating going forward. Will Partner sites become a thing of the past? Looking forward to a good discussion here 🙂 PS - I am not staff at Moz just have a t-shirt which is my avatar. I am not sure why below my avatar it suggests I am Staff due to the tag added to it. Is anyone else getting that on their profile too?
Reviews and Ratings | | TimHolmes0 -
What affect do reviews have?
Hello all. Currently, I am seriously considering including a customer reviews panel on the product pages of my ecommerce site. Does anyone have any previous experience, bad or good. Also, what sort of affect do positive/negative reviews have on search engine rankings. Your advice would be greatly appreciated.
Reviews and Ratings | | AHC_SEO0 -
Local Reviews.
Hi I was wondering if someone can tell me if I understand this correctly or at least my observation has been right? Does Yelp pick up the reviews left of Google and post it on yelp, if you are using the same gmail to log in to both your yelp and google account?
Reviews and Ratings | | LittleDog0 -
Do ratings/reviews show up in Organic Search Results anymore?
I read about using schema or h1review to add markup that would get an individual person's review to show up in organic search, but it was from 2013. I did a few queries for keywords in my area, and none of the results had this. Then I did some queries for generic things like "best pizza in Tampa" and "coffee in tampa" and they didn't have it either. So, is this still something that can be done or not? I do see it when a review site like yelp comes up or in ads, but I'm specifically talking about organic search results from our website. Thanks, Ruben
Reviews and Ratings | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Schema Markup for email with review action for Google places listing - Auto segment.
Hi Guys I have been trying to integrate schema markup with review action into car purchase emails to drive additional reviews for dealership google places listings. I have used the below mark-up but im struggling to get the review action when defining itemtype as AutoDealer. When changing itemtype to FoodEstablishment the review action works perfectly. Has anyone got any suggestions why this may be or have any experience using the review action within emails for google places or itemtype other than FoodEstablishment. I have read the great Moz post on this here but im still struggling. Thanks in advance for any help! See mark-up below... http://schema.org/EmailMessage">http://schema.org/ReviewAction">http://schema.org/Review">https://schema.org/AutoDealer">https://schema.org/Rating">http://schema.org/HttpActionHandler">http://schema.org/Property">http://schema.org/Property"> http://schema.org/HttpRequestMethod/POST"/>
Reviews and Ratings | | MBASydney0