Potential Ethical Conflict: Google My Business Paid Reviews
-
I've been sitting on this for a while due to The Busies. So if this is nothing new, feel free to lash me several times with a somewhat moist noodle. And in that event, I promise not to make it weird.
I use the Rewards application, from Google. Long story short, you fill in some demographic information and you receive Google Play credit when you complete surveys. It's a nice way to get a book, app, or music for little effort.
But after giving a friend of mine a ride to a local hotel, I've received multiple survey requests that relate to that hotel brand. And it asks me to drop a local review, for extra Google Play credit. How is that ethical?
Their own docs clearly state there is no way to pay for better local ranking, but they also admit reviews can improve local ranking. So isn't soliciting reviews, for any sort of compensation, at least a bit unethical? What are your thoughts?
Attached are screenshots of the solicitation and GMB documentation.
-
I probably got hit by the survey a half dozen times over the course of a year. The problem was it's really difficult to take screenshots on my phone, without closing out to the 'desktop'. Finally managed to capture one about six months ago, then sat on it.
I know the brands involved, so it's probably pretty easy to verify if the pay per review thing was sanctioned. I'm just not certain which tree to bark up.
To me, it's clear the ethics have been at least modestly bent. Compensation involved with any review is a paid review. But the dark side tells me if this is readily available, it might be handy one day.
-
Hmm, not sure what to make of that, and what I don't like about the graphic you captured is that image showing the 5 stars on it. I wish I had some more time to dig into this, but I'm swamped right now. If this is being regulated by Google, the there's nothing to do about it, but like I said, I'm not familiar with Rewards, so I don't know all the ins and outs.
-
Little bit of column A, little bit of column B. It appears to me that it's an option a marketer may choose, and Google is cool with it - hence the 'Hey, this is gonna be public, but you'll get more credit. The portion of the survey I captured has a graphic.
Usually it's just text with tick boxes, and/or radio buttons.
-
Hey Travis,
I've been thinking about this thread and wanted to come back to it with a question for you. You wrote:"But after giving a friend of mine a ride to a local hotel, I've received multiple survey requests that relate to that hotel brand. And it asks me to drop a local review, for extra Google Play credit. How is that ethical?"
I'm not signed up for Google Rewards and have a question. Is the solicitation for the review in exchange for an incentive something being automated by Google, or is it your impression that the review ask is stemming from unique language created by the hotel, itself?
-
How do Miriam,
My concern here is that it appears, face value, to be a sanctioned measure. And it wouldn't be the first time Google ran afoul of their own standards. Though I'm a little torn.
On the one hand, it's a review for compensation. On the other, given a larger metro, you can build up a decent bit of reviews on the quick. So it's either a gift horse, or a moral quandary.
That's why I thought it was an interesting question.
I don't think this was a rogue actor thing. I think it was, at least at the time, sanctioned by someone in the Rewards domain.
-
Hey Travis,
Excellent topic. You have two options here, as what the hotel is doing is absolutely a violation of Google's guidelines if they are offering any kind of incentive in exchange for a Google-based review:
- If you feel concern for the hotel, you could be kind here and reach out to them directly to let them know they are seriously endangering their entire corpus of reviews as well as their brand reputation by incentivizing reviews. Personally, I would take this route. I would point the hotel to this recent thread in the GMB forum in which a brand was reported for offering free zoo tickets in exchange for reviews and ended up losing 96 of their 101 reviews: https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/forums/v3_1/forumtopicpage/board-id/Spam_and_Policy/page/1/thread-id/22628
It is so not worth the risk! At any time, any customer or competitor could report the hotel and they'd have a total reputation mess on their hands. So, I'd probably do the nice thing and let them know that. Sometimes, brands genuinely do not know the guidelines and haven't made the connection that they are deceiving their own clientele by making an incentivized review appear as though it is unbiased. So, I'd be inclined to give them a heads-up, if I thought ignorance was the root of their marketing activities. I'd be more inclined to believe this if the business was a small hotel. If it's a large hotel chain, I'd be less inclined to believe they'd just made a mistake ... they have a marketing department that shouldn't be allowing this activity to put the brand at risk.
- However, if you feel the hotel is wittingly doing this, knowing they are deceiving the public and violating Google's guidelines, then you can take this over to the GMB forum and document/report this obvious case of review spam. It will then be up to the TCs there to escalate or not.
Good luck. Unfortunately, review spam is an incredibly widespread issue, often being generated by global networks. It's really unfortunate.
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
-
Purchasing and rebranding practice with bad reviews
An optometrist is looking to buy a practice with really bad Google reviews. They want to rebrand it under their name. This practice has pretty bad SEO as well. What should they do? Should they just mark the GMB page as permanently closed then make a new one under the new business name? Or is that risky or considered spammy since the "new" practice is also an optometrist? Could Google think it is a duplicate or an attempt to trick them?
Reviews and Ratings | | Mike-i0 -
Marking up an iframe with reviews schema. Possible? Ethical?
Hey there fellow Mozzers! I work with a broad variety of clients, many of them local businesses, and they in turn sometimes find a vendor that stumps me. This is one of those special cases, where the vendor is doing some shady stuff with reviews schema. First, they're taking reviews from third party sites and filtering them to only show 4 and 5 star reviews (red flag #1), then they're asking us to post them to the website (red flag #2) and finally they are marking them up with schema (red flag #3). If this were my vendor I would have fired them when they started telling me Google doesn't care, doesn't enforce the guidelines, and all that other nonsense, but hey, I'm not the client and I have to make good for them. I did flat out refuse to place these reviews as they asked, but they came back with a "solution", that I'm not sure I trust. They're telling me they can't remove the schema (red flag #4), but they can iframe it onto the website. Their logic, which is wrong, is that Google can't/doesn't crawl iframes so therefore the reviews can be displayed without any negative consequence. I obviously have some ethical concerns with this, but I have to provide the service to my client whether or not they share my values. However, I can object on professional grounds if I think they will take on undue risk. My only problem here is that I have no documentation for how this proposed solution would work. Working through this logically still leaves me with a gap, and that's where you folks come in!
Reviews and Ratings | | brettmandoes
A) We know that Google crawls iframes
B) We know that Google can apply schema within iframes (works with YouTube embeds)
C) We know that content within an iframe is technically on another website, so it doesn't normally apply to your website
D) I don't know how specifically reviews schema would interact with an iframe
E) I don't know if this would result in Google triggering an alarm and blocking the business I'm hoping you guys can help me figure this out. Ethics aside (making me cringe to type that) is this technically feasible without risk, or would this still be a risky move? For the record, another client tried filtering their reviews while marking up with schema against my recommendation and got caught, and received a penalty alert. They were removed from results until the problem was fixed.0 -
3rd Party Approved Reviews - Widget or API Feed - Any thoughts ?
Hi Mozzers, We use a google approved 3rd party review company to collect reviews for our branches and now also for our products( this is about to be implemented). We currently use one of their widgets on our site (its javascript) to show the reviews. I don't think google can read this and I don't think we currently, therefore, get any direct seo benefit from it. My questions are as follows : I obviously want to get any SEO benefit from any review text which customers leave but as the data itself is housed on the review site with a widget on my site pointing to it,should I use an API feed as opposed to a widget. If google can read the review text on my page - then surely i should some benefit from it even though, it could technically be classed as duplicate content what are peoples thoughts ? . thanks Pete
Reviews and Ratings | | PeterCol120 -
I just found original business name for client - its not the same as GMB or any aggregate site. What to do?
the business filing with the Secretary of State is a name of an individual (e.g. Matthew Smith, M.D.). This is on reflected on Localeze and such. However, the business is operating under a name "Healthy Body and Minds Clinic", which is the Facebook, Google My Business, and website name and info. So, how is it best to get consistency in NAP with the two different business names being used? (Ideally, no change in State registration or filing for a DBA). Thanks much! One idea I have seen is to include both and separate them by a colon. As in "Healthy Body and Minds Clinic : Matthew Smith, M.D." I appreciate any suggestions or tips to help. Thanks.
Reviews and Ratings | | Marky_Mark0 -
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
Reviews and Ratings | | imoprojects0 -
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 -
Yelp Review From My Customer Removed
Hi, A customer of mine told me she created a yelp account just to give me a review. She's a good customer and wanted to show me her appreciation. I thanked her for taking the trouble. About a week later, I see that her review was marked as "not recommended." This was a legitimate review made by a real customer. I'm angry that it was removed for no reason. I noticed a competitor of mine has 18 yelp reviews and all of them show up just fine. I also noticed that this same competitor is paying for ads from Yelp. A couple of years ago, another customer reviewed me on yelp and it was also labeled as "not recommended." So I now have 2 "not recommended" reviews on Yelp that, if you ask me, imply that my reviews are fake. After Yelp and Yahoo merged, I lost the 14 Yahoo reviews I had obtained from customers over the last six years. I have also noticed over the years, that whenever I need to sign into my Yelp business account to update the data, it's locked until some pushy sales person calls and asks to speak to me in order to try to sell me ads on Yelp. Anyone else hate Yelp? They're obviously not really interested in making sure reviews are "real," they're just interested in selling expensive ads.
Reviews and Ratings | | Ophelia6191 -
SCHEMA Review Markup Check & Questions
Hi, I have a few questions about our SCHEMA for user-submitted business reviews. Here's what I have so far: User Review Reviewer Name Business Name
Reviews and Ratings | | kirmeliux
05/14/2014 5 1. Am I missing anything? 2. Is the itemReviewed tag necessary? 3. If a category/results page has multiple businesses listed and shows their ratings, is marking the businesses up as you would on their individual page okay? What about the ratings? I have a feeling marking the ratings would confuse Google, but the businesses themselves (NAP) should be alright, correct? 4. General Q: Is it alright to have multiple reviewBody tags within one review? For instance, if the review is split into 2 parts and additional code/content is between them that isn't part of the review, can we just add multiple reviewBody tags within the same main div tag? Thanks!0