Great analogies! It is amazing though how Google manages to impact our reality and more importantly our perception of that reality.

Thanks

Mike

If we weren’t worried about Google, where is there a parallel in the offline world to giving incentives to customers in order to reach a business goal?

I’d say the concept of referring a friend is a like one. Refer a friend to Dr. Milmoss and receive a free neck massage on your next visit.

Something for you, something for Dr. Milmoss. Nothing unethical about it.

Miriam

I am not sure as a business owner you would want to incent your least happy customer to give you a review but nothing is stopping that customer from reviewing you if they thought you were doing a terrible job. I think most SMB’s are still uncomfortable with the review process and it will be some time before they welcome all comers.

That being said it is not clear to me that Google or anyone else is ranking in local based on your star rating so I am not sure that they approach this in the same way that they approach paid links.

Mike

I totally agree with your thinking. But, I think it would be interesting here from Matt Cutts or someone else from Google on this topic.

The thing is, if google is trying to create the most relevant results a review added to their directory good or bad would help the end user. The thing that gets questionable in my mind is if someone only offered incentives to 4 or 5 star reviews.

I have done limited testing and with some folks I did not offer any incentive and with some I did. I picked and chose based on my perception of them… obviously the client above found the incentive very motivating although she had already written me a positive review privately.

I absolutely do think it is ok to incent clients to provide feedback. Google has not officially offered up their position on this.

But it differs in form and substance from paying for a link to your site. In that case you are buying a link with no other purpose than to game Google, it really serves no other useful purpose.

In this case you are requesting feedback from YOUR clients on 3rd party site to inform others of the quality of your work and provide you with feedback. The client has a choice of participating, they can say what they want and leave you with a 1 star review if they so desire. There is no attempt to game anybody but rather an attempt by you the business owner to market your business in a positive way.

What do others think?
Mike

I guess what I am really asking, is do you think Google gets made when you give people an incentive to review. Large companies do it all the time. Otherwise how could you get focus groups, and how many receipts from walmart and target ask you to review them online, or fill out a survey for a chance to win such and such.