Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Category Archive For "Reviews"
Reputation Management Dilemma – The Review From Hell
This post recently showed up in the forums: Link to your local Google+ page Business name (as it is in your account): Bakersfield Funeral Home Business location: 3121 19th Street, Bakersfield, CA 93301, USA Business telephone: 661-871-8080 Business category: Funeral Home Website: www.bakersfieldfuneral.com An ex employee is trying to hurt the business after being fired for …
Fake Reviews – Everyone is doing it, so it must be legal
I absolutely loved this thread at blackhatworld. The original poster asked: Hi, Does anybody know if it is illegal to sell fake online reviews? I have heard about companies getting fined for posting / buying fake reviews, but can the seller actually get in trouble? If so then why does Fiverr allow you to post …
Reviews, SMBs & Google – Still Not Clear on the Concept
This story is so rich in the evolving complexity of reviews; the absurdly angry SMB, the frustrated poster and so rich a tale of service gone awry. A story of how decent service can become indecent service by the sort of reflexive behavior that is so common in the service industry. To say nothing of …
Google Reviews – New Quirks
Last week, with the rollout of the Places Review Monitoring system, we started to see some quirks in review count difference between the monitoring dashboard and the + Page. Subsequently business owners, like Barbara Oliver, reported review count declines on their + Page and in the main search results. Barbara’s reviews went from 65 to …
Google Intros the Mother of All SMB Review Monitoring Systems
Google has announced on the Google and Your Business blog today that they have rolled out what appears to be the mother of all review monitoring systems today. The system, a new module for the updated Places for Business Dashboard, not only shows Google based reviews to dashboard owners and managers, it shows every review …
Google Rolling out New + Page Layout – Reviews Lost in the Process
It seems that the new layout first reported on October 23rd is now rolling out world wide. As noted at the time The big difference is that the page now can be displayed in either a single, two or three column layouts depending on browser window width as opposed to the current fixed two column …
Google: Reviews, How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
If one stops and counts how many times the word review or the star ratings show on the front page of Google one can only conclude that Google not only thinks they are important but that they are of tantamount importance in local searches. These screen shots of local searches show the screen real estate above …
Google Becoming Slightly More Transparent About Nuking Reviews
Update 9/28: I had myself taken off as a manager of Barbara’s page and my review instantly lost the notice and showed back up on the listing. Historically at Google Local, if a review triggered the spam filter, the reviewer would still see the review associated with the business if they were logged in and …
NY State AG Brings Down the Hammer on Fake Reviews (Again)
The NY Times is reporting that the NY State Attorney General will be announcing a crackdown today against 19 NY based companies, both SMBs and “reputation management” firms, for posting fake reviews online. The companies will pay fines totaling $350,000 and agree to cease to the practice. “Among those signing the agreements are a charter …
Reviews And Lawsuits – Is There a Better Way?
Yelp received a lot of attention in the online world last week for suing a bankruptcy lawyer (who had previously sued them and won) for leaving fake reviews. Suing a single practitioner may have some value in terms of the publicity and alerting businesses to the risks of creating fake reviews. But given the scale of …
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