Comments on: Review Solicitation – Dumb and Dumber

By: Cristy

Cristy — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 01:37:35 +0000

Because of guys like this it hard for me to rely on reviews. They want you to believe it’s an actual customer with an honest review, but in reality it’s fake. I like to use websites like tripadvisor.com, but I feel that some of the reviews on that website are fabricated to increase thier rankings. Where can the consumer get an honest review these days?

Word of mouth is still and will always be the best review!

By: panzermike

panzermike — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:59:41 +0000

@josh: I agree that “illegal” reviews should not be allowed. How do you suggest Google police this activity?

My thoughts were Google should:

(1) Allow a business to “opt out” of the review process completely;

(2) Have a fair process to remove bogus, or allegedly bogus reviews (both favorable “friend” reviews and “unfavorable “competitor attacks”, “defamatory or false customer reviews”;

(3) Create viable, non vague and non ambiguous guidelines and re inclusion rules before punishing ANYONE for violating these yet to be created policies, procedures and guidelines.;-)

Have you any other ideas?

By: terry Van Horne

terry Van Horne — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 15:37:52 +0000

Mike thanks for the list of review solicitation activities!

By: josh

josh — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 23:42:11 +0000

Reviews are meant to help consumers pick the bad businesses from the good. If the reviews are being contaminated to help a business then it should be illegal to post false reviews

By: panzermike

panzermike — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 21:13:02 +0000

Too funny, a guy who promotes what amounts to vote spamming on his blog.

Hey Matt Cutts. Get a load of this: Chiropractors reviewing eachother.

Let’s see. “Dr. Spam really did a great job cracking my back.” ‘(Signed Dr. Review’ [Dr. Spammer's friend].)

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 21:15:45 +0000

I agree that #6 is unlikely to fall into the illegal category but it certainly is 1)very obvious to the Google’s of the world and 2)not in the social spirit of the review process….

In fact I am not sure that these are the only possibilities but they represent a range of possibilities that cover many situations…but you can see as you go down the list as the ethics become sketchier the footprint grows larger and the time to implement on a regular basis increases

By: Stever

Stever — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 21:08:30 +0000

#6 might be a maybe when it comes to legal or not. Depends on how it’s actually implemented. The reviews may be legitimate opinions of real customers, but somewhat misrepresented in terms of how they are published and the perceived identity of the reviewer. ie. who’s user account are they being submitted through or who’s name are they being accredited to?

Another possible can of worms in that scenario is if the person that did originally provide a testimonial felt that they got misrepresented in how it was later used as a published review.

By: ClueList

ClueList — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 09:05:29 +0000

Another thing. He has a spot on ripoffreport and I am going to quote one of the people on there.

“This report was filed 4 years ago and all of a sudden, all rebuttals ae posted in a short period? It makes the company look bad.”

http://www.ripoffreport.com/multi-level-marketing/ben-cummings/ben-cummings-practicebuildin-92a8p.htm

By: ClueList

ClueList — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 08:52:22 +0000

I am very dumbfounded this guy is doing this in the public eye. This is clearly blackhat, no ands/ifs/buts about it.

-”I will take down this thread if I see fake reviews that are based on fake patient reviews”
“This is obviously an untrue review”
_____

Wow what a nutjub. Would be awesome if a google rep was given access to that section and laid the hand of reckoning to the exploitation.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 18:53:49 +0000

@Earlpearl

Clearly there are many lenses through which to view business behavior….but as I was explaining above, even if you make a different cut point than I on the ethics side there are still legal, time and business case issues to consider.

In this situation almost all of them point to 1 or 2 on the chart as the appropriate activity…

So even though I fall at one on the ethics scale I might understand why someone might come in at 3,4 or 5 but even if they do, they need to reconsider their position… based on all of the other issues.