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UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

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Re: UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

#81

Post by ThorAway00 »

ghoward wrote: post #25

I once wrote a negative review of a business on Google, and it went up, but when I went to look at the business's reviews under my wife's Google account, it was not there. I waited an hour and checked. Then a couple hours and checked. Then a day. It never showed up. I posted the review under her account and did the same checks for my account. It never showed up. I do not know why it didn't show up, but I wouldn't be…

Throwaway for obvious reasons:

While working for a big vacation rental company in Portland not named Airbnb, they rolled out a review update that still added negative reviews to the 5 star score, but hid the context.

A rental may have a lowered star rating but the only story you’d see was praise.

Business is not about logic like engineering. It’s about growing margins, and that is entirely emotional.

Re: UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

#82

Post by jedberg »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #76
jedberg wrote: post #39

If feels like this could be solved if Google/Yelp/Etc wanted to solve it, but it would cut into their profits. Give the business an app to generate unique QR codes for each customer, and then have that customer use the code to make the review. Now everyone knows that the review comes from a person who actually bought the product, the reviewer is more likely to be honest because their identity is known to the seller,…

How do I know the QR codes really came from a customer and weren't simply created and submitted by the business owner? Also how do I know the seller didn't bribe the buyer with a discount or something to create a positive review?

Well, those problems happen now, so it's not strictly worse than what we have now, but those are good points.

For the first one, it would have to be tied into the payment system somehow so the money would have to change hands. It doesn't totally solve the problem, but it certainly adds a cost, especially if the payment system requires unique customers. Heck, Google could make money like this by only allowing reviews for purchases via Google Pay.

For the second one, I'm not really sure, but if they bribe everyone with the same discount, it's not really a bribe anymore, it's just the new price. And if they don't offer everyone the bribe, then they will quickly get bad reviews.

Re: UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

#84

Post by beckingz »

rococode wrote: post #32

An interesting thing about paid reviews - you can prove that the reviews are fake, but you usually can't prove that the business itself actually paid for those reviews. In a hypothetical world where companies with fake reviews are regularly discovered and lambasted in public, it's easy to imagine a sinister metagame where unscrupulous small businesses can buy bad good reviews (i.e. 5-star reviews that are obviously f…

This happened on Amazon.

Outcompeted by another product listing? Buy obviously fake amazon reviews and they would get suspended by Amazon for purchasing fake reviews.

I've heard that Amazon is now more nuanced in how they handle suspensions, but it's a mess.

Re: UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

#85

Post by mewpmewp2 »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #69
ghoward wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are sort of communicating. I _am_ the OP. And I only meant it as "I don't trust Google." I'll let you decide if that implication is unsubstantiated or not.

You should just say that, then. If I don't trust someone, that doesn't mean it's OK to go around and imply that they do some absurd malicious thing I have absolutely no evidence they actually do. It's fine not to trust them. Spreading unsubstantiated rumors and implications is not fine.

I just wanted to mention that I adore the way you articulated and called out everything that was going on here.

Re: UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

#86

Post by hayst4ck »

ghoward wrote: post #25

I once wrote a negative review of a business on Google, and it went up, but when I went to look at the business's reviews under my wife's Google account, it was not there. I waited an hour and checked. Then a couple hours and checked. Then a day. It never showed up. I posted the review under her account and did the same checks for my account. It never showed up. I do not know why it didn't show up, but I wouldn't be…

I am no google fanboy, but I WOULD be surprised to find such a thing. The reason I would be surprised is history and alignment.

  Google consistently has bad/non existent customer service
  It is famously hard to talk to a google employee when you have a problem
  Google has a history of primarily hiring devs
  Google knows its bread and butter is legitimate results
  Google probably has the largest most experienced anti-SEO team on the earth
  Google seems to want to stay out of the press
  Google maps reviews are a very major competitive moat against other maps
  Google is supported by ads, but AFAIK does not actively seek customers
  Google does not do delivery
  Google's money maker is getting information, maps is a major input
  Maps is a secondary business able to be subsidized by search ad revenue
On the counter side

  Inflated reviews/advantaged reviews would make ad customers happy
  Selling position is potentially extremely profitable
I just don't see it. It's not googles MO. It's yelps MO. That's why I use google maps as my primary tool for finding whats good.

What I wouldn't be surprised by is google systemically limiting negative reviews. In my experience A yelp 3.5 would be a 4 on google maps. A yelp 1 or 2 would be a 3 on google maps. 4 would be 4.5 on google maps. Google maps numbers are definitely inflated, but once you understand the relative scale it's just as good as pre-corrupt Yelp.

Re: UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

#87

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

vorpalhex wrote: post #68
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wouldn't be surprised if the business had been able to pay money to Google to be able to check reviews There is no way to do this that I can find documentation of on the public internet. You'd think if it were possible, someone would have written a howto guide. Personally, I'm deeply skeptical that any such mechanism exists. The revenue it would generate would be negligible and the potential for reputation loss s…

As a business owner, you only need to claim the review is fraudulant and that will usually get it removed. In theory a review hoster is supposed to evaluate claims and act on reasonable ones. In practice review hosters are terrified of getting sued and will take down reviews easily. I suspect most local businesses hire "reputation fixing" firms to actually do this dirty work for them.

I don't know how to square this claim with the plethora of businesses with many negative reviews on both Google and Yelp. If it were this easy, you'd think everyone would be doing it. Probably someone would have written a blog post describing how to do so. I can find out how to buy gmail accounts on Google, but I can't find out how to remove business reviews. Maybe the claim is just that most small businesses are very honest?

In any case, the scenario you're describing is decidedly not pay-for-play on Google's part, and thus doesn't really impinge on my response to OP.

Re: UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

#88

Post by ghoward »

arkitaip wrote: post #77
ghoward wrote: post #25

I once wrote a negative review of a business on Google, and it went up, but when I went to look at the business's reviews under my wife's Google account, it was not there. I waited an hour and checked. Then a couple hours and checked. Then a day. It never showed up. I posted the review under her account and did the same checks for my account. It never showed up. I do not know why it didn't show up, but I wouldn't be…

Do you have any idea how difficult it would be for a random dinky business to bribe an engineer at Google? There are businesses that are literally making bank for Google and still can't get in touch with a human being at Google when their Google account gets locked, app gets removed from the Play Store, etc. What probably happened is that the business had friends and family members report your review which was remove…

The reason I am hesitant to believe that is because of the fact that the review _never_ showed up, not even briefly.

However, you could still be right.

Re: UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

#89

Post by Spivak »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #76
jedberg wrote: post #39

If feels like this could be solved if Google/Yelp/Etc wanted to solve it, but it would cut into their profits. Give the business an app to generate unique QR codes for each customer, and then have that customer use the code to make the review. Now everyone knows that the review comes from a person who actually bought the product, the reviewer is more likely to be honest because their identity is known to the seller,…

How do I know the QR codes really came from a customer and weren't simply created and submitted by the business owner? Also how do I know the seller didn't bribe the buyer with a discount or something to create a positive review?

Because all reviews are tied to an active Google account which is pseudo-tied to an IRL identity.

I don't really care about the second point because it doesn't scale, people will do it anyway, and you can cozy right up to the line of literally paying for a good review in a million different "above board" ways.

Re: UK businesses caught buying five-star Google reviews

#90

Post by ghoward »

hayst4ck wrote: post #86
ghoward wrote: post #25

I once wrote a negative review of a business on Google, and it went up, but when I went to look at the business's reviews under my wife's Google account, it was not there. I waited an hour and checked. Then a couple hours and checked. Then a day. It never showed up. I posted the review under her account and did the same checks for my account. It never showed up. I do not know why it didn't show up, but I wouldn't be…

I am no google fanboy, but I WOULD be surprised to find such a thing. The reason I would be surprised is history and alignment. Google consistently has bad/non existent customer service It is famously hard to talk to a google employee when you have a problem Google has a history of primarily hiring devs Google knows its bread and butter is legitimate results Google probably has the largest most experienced anti-SEO t…

This is a great reply to my post and answers me better than any of the others I have seen thus far.
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