Hit by Competitor Spam Review – How to Respond?

On July 22, my client Barbara Oliver & Co. Jewelry’s Google Place page was hit with what appears to be a competitor spam review. The review is rather bizarre with racial innuendo and unfounded accusations. It would appear that the reviewer had not ever visited the store. The timing of the spam review is interesting. There have …

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Google Places Gains New Ally in Review Battle with Yelp

Google has been in a pitched tussle with Yelp for quite some time. Google introduced reviews to local in 2007 and the fun began. Yelp reviews in Google, Yelp reviews out of Google, Yelp’s anger at Google’s use of their content, Google contrition, a large offer by Google and a failed buyout, Yelp reviews out of …

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GetListed Local University Grand Rapids

Today, I am presenting at the seventh GetListed.org Local University in Grand Rapids, MI. in cooperation with Mlive.com and the Grand Rapids Press, Muskegon Chronicle, the Kalamazoo Gazette and the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce. I hope to personally meet all of you in attendance. Please don’t hesitate to reach out and ask any questions that …

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Review Snippets Gone From Google Blended Results

Sometime over this past weekend Google stopped showing any review snippet with either Blended or the Branded One Box Results in the main search results view for many results. It appears that snippets are still visible in restaurants, hotels and possibly other heavily reviewed areas New view (from 6/27): View from last week (taken 6/23) …

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The Growth of Reviews In Google Places (aka Hotpot)

  It was apparent to me in early January that the introduction of Google Hotpot was leading to vast increase in Google’s review/rating corpus. I was seeing reviews and ratings in industries and geographic areas that had not seen Google originated reviews and seeing them frequently. To get a better handle on this trend I …

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