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A large network of fake Google Maps comments/reviews and fake businesses

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Re: A large network of fake Google Maps comments/reviews and fake businesses

#111

Post by urbandw311er »

hannasm wrote: post #83
gerdesj wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own a business in Somerset, UK. The site we are on is roughly 40% us and 60% Somerset County Council property. We each have our own UK postcode - normally reserved for around 5-80 properties. The SCC bit has multiple uses - a transport division (minibuses for schools) and nowadays the vestiges of supported living. Its being wound down and is being sold off. We moved to Yeovil Five Ways from near Hazlebury Plucknet…

This may come off as a little intense but this seems like the central issue with capitalism in our world today. Competition is competition to lower human expectations to increase corporate profits instead of giving more to humanity on the back of the corporation that has grown a capability to do it.

To me that doesn’t come off as intense at all, it’s just correctly reducing this down to the real underlying problem. Vital social tools that we use to live our lives are being operated by shady corporations for profit and not the greater good.

Re: A large network of fake Google Maps comments/reviews and fake businesses

#112

Post by lock-the-spock »

jaycroft wrote: post #14
TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #6

My time to shine as someone who's pretty deep in this game. There's an enormous and growing market of fake GBPs for the purpose of selling leads called Local SEO Lead Gen. (each entity can bring in thousands of dollars/month.) The thinking is why go through the headache of dealing with clients who can fire you the day after they begin ranking (Local SEO is heavily "front loaded" work wise), will always try undercutti…

So this is why when I called a locksmith last week, they took down my info and then 30 minutes later got a call from no less than 5 other locksmiths who were "on their way to my house". Nobody's phone number matched, nobody wanted to tell me who they worked for. Totally sketched out with Google Maps' suggestions, I switched to yelp. The first service I called on yelp was reasonably priced, was actually the person com…

I don't know about the US but in Europe many cities/communes will list registered businesses in the area, usually these are manually curated lists. so while you don't necessarily get ratings/reviews (which I have basically stopped trusting altogether), you'll get legitimate.

Re: A large network of fake Google Maps comments/reviews and fake businesses

#113

Post by urbandw311er »

sairahul82 wrote: post #15

These fake reviews are easier to identify. No profile photo, they typically have one or two 5 star reviews. If you click on few reviews of a business and if you see this pattern then most likely they are fake. In the past I want to choose a mover and this particular business has 4.9 stars with over 300 reviews. There is no way a mover can have this rating. I clicked on atleast 50 reviewers and all of them have only o…

Heh. Wait until these are written by GPT then we’ll see how easy they are to spot.

Re: A large network of fake Google Maps comments/reviews and fake businesses

#114

Post by miohtama »

SteveGerencser wrote: post #61
TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #6

My time to shine as someone who's pretty deep in this game. There's an enormous and growing market of fake GBPs for the purpose of selling leads called Local SEO Lead Gen. (each entity can bring in thousands of dollars/month.) The thinking is why go through the headache of dealing with clients who can fire you the day after they begin ranking (Local SEO is heavily "front loaded" work wise), will always try undercutti…

What baffles me is how these networks flourish so easily yet Google can't tell a real business from a fake. The number of people calling me lately (I'm in the same business) about the Business Profile being removed by Google. Even active retail shops that have had their account for many years, with a clearly visibly business on Google maps. Their GBP simply vanishes and in a few cases, the only solution was to simply…

Google has more data and more money than anyone on this planet, so they easily could tell fakes apart from real ones if they really wanted. The question is why they do not want to do so ... Will end up another dumb topic to be regulated in the EU in the future.

Re: A large network of fake Google Maps comments/reviews and fake businesses

#115

Post by jfoster »

TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #6

My time to shine as someone who's pretty deep in this game. There's an enormous and growing market of fake GBPs for the purpose of selling leads called Local SEO Lead Gen. (each entity can bring in thousands of dollars/month.) The thinking is why go through the headache of dealing with clients who can fire you the day after they begin ranking (Local SEO is heavily "front loaded" work wise), will always try undercutti…

> they will quite literally start their own company and will hire

At that point... Are they even fake anymore?

Re: A large network of fake Google Maps comments/reviews and fake businesses

#116

Post by seb1204 »

wolongong942 wrote: post #81
bryceacc wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

get AAA, and also credit card over the phone? I would have stopped there

That's how most legitimate tow companies take payment if you aren't already registered.

Mobile credit devices are very common. Some are the size of a coaster and connect to you mobile device of choice. Pay on arrival.

Re: A large network of fake Google Maps comments/reviews and fake businesses

#117

Post by rustdeveloper »

TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #6

My time to shine as someone who's pretty deep in this game. There's an enormous and growing market of fake GBPs for the purpose of selling leads called Local SEO Lead Gen. (each entity can bring in thousands of dollars/month.) The thinking is why go through the headache of dealing with clients who can fire you the day after they begin ranking (Local SEO is heavily "front loaded" work wise), will always try undercutti…

There are tutorials for building you own mobile proxy pool so it’s very accessible these days: https://scrapingfish.com/blog/byo-mobile-proxy-for-web-scrap...

Re: A large network of fake Google Maps comments/reviews and fake businesses

#118

Post by pjc50 »

TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #6

My time to shine as someone who's pretty deep in this game. There's an enormous and growing market of fake GBPs for the purpose of selling leads called Local SEO Lead Gen. (each entity can bring in thousands of dollars/month.) The thinking is why go through the headache of dealing with clients who can fire you the day after they begin ranking (Local SEO is heavily "front loaded" work wise), will always try undercutti…

> Google has actually begun VIDEO verification where you literally have to facetime with a Google employee to verify you own the business you say you own... even this can be gamed since any type of manual verification will be outsourced.

I feel that this is going to be a big negative externality of AI: since it makes faking everything much easier, all verification processes will become more difficult and expensive. Eventually there will start being "you must come to this office and present ID" steps, with all the associated costs.

Re: A large network of fake Google Maps comments/reviews and fake businesses

#119

Post by trasz3 »

SteveGerencser wrote: post #61
TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #6

My time to shine as someone who's pretty deep in this game. There's an enormous and growing market of fake GBPs for the purpose of selling leads called Local SEO Lead Gen. (each entity can bring in thousands of dollars/month.) The thinking is why go through the headache of dealing with clients who can fire you the day after they begin ranking (Local SEO is heavily "front loaded" work wise), will always try undercutti…

What baffles me is how these networks flourish so easily yet Google can't tell a real business from a fake. The number of people calling me lately (I'm in the same business) about the Business Profile being removed by Google. Even active retail shops that have had their account for many years, with a clearly visibly business on Google maps. Their GBP simply vanishes and in a few cases, the only solution was to simply…

Why would Google care? Their business is making an appearance of providing useful information, not actually providing useful information.

Re: A large network of fake Google Maps comments/reviews and fake businesses

#120

Post by gmd63 »

schappim wrote: post #18
jaycroft wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this is why when I called a locksmith last week, they took down my info and then 30 minutes later got a call from no less than 5 other locksmiths who were "on their way to my house". Nobody's phone number matched, nobody wanted to tell me who they worked for. Totally sketched out with Google Maps' suggestions, I switched to yelp. The first service I called on yelp was reasonably priced, was actually the person com…

I wouldn't give Yelp too much praise. It's been alleged that Yelp engages in astroturfing and unfair business practices[0], and the documentary "Billion Dollar Bully"[1] even accuses them of "Mob-Like Behavior". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yelp [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion_Dollar_Bully

The last time I used Yelp was when it asked me to install their app to use the full feature set.
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