Pulling the Plug on Paid Reviews

07 Mar Pulling the Plug on Paid Reviews

The falsification of reviews of products and businesses is nothing new, being a favored dirty trick employed by competitors wishing to mar a rival’s reputation, or employees hoping to boost that of their own company. Thankfully, the sheer number of reviews and their inherent transparency on sites similar to Yelp have been instrumental in mitigating the effects of what is now termed “review fraud”. Unfortunately, there are unscrupulous businesses out there that seek to capitalize on the consumer’s trust in online rankings and reviews by offering to falsify them in bulk for financial gain.

If you type in the term “reputation management” into Google, you’ll find that near the top of the page is a link to a site that lets businesses buy positive reviews. These businesses employ “reputation management experts”, or a roomful of what are likely offshore employees who do nothing but churn out glowing review after glowing review without ever visiting the business they are writing for or trying out one of their products.

To counter the growth of fraudulent and improper reviews and ratings, Google recently revised its review guidelines, as seen below:

Conflict of interest – Reviews are only valuable when they are honest and unbiased. Even if well-intentioned, a conflict of interest can undermine the trust in a review. For instance, do not offer or accept money or product to write positive reviews about a business, or to write negative reviews about a competitor. Please also do not post reviews on behalf of others or misrepresent your identity or affiliation with the place you are reviewing.

The way review fraud seems to be picking up speed, industry analysts have begun to describe it as the new black hat SEO.