Competition leaving bad reviews on our places page, what to do?
-
I have flagged the reviews as not useful from multiple IPs. I have attempted reporting the review as well. Google does nothing. It's very obvious that the review(s) are fake. Often all the other reviews of the person's profile are for different cities and all 5 stars for businesses that they are most likely doing SEO work for. Are (blackhat) SEOs using bad reviews as a technique to keep the competition out in your business/market? What did you do about it?
-
In all my years doing local search marketing the only bad reviews I have been able to get removed on Google are those that include profanity or "inappropriate content" and even those have required many email exchanges with Google.
Have you read this: http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=187622
Also remember to make it easy for your clients to post review by placing you places link on email campaigns and social media profile pages.
Good luck!
-
Thanks! we figured as much, and already have a positive review since this bad one. I was just wondering if there was an easier fix
-
Thanks! we figured as much, and already have a positive review since this bad one. I was just wondering if there was an easier fix
-
The best way to fight evil is with good. Focus your energy and efforts on getting / encouraging your clients to leave positive reviews for your company.
-
Sorrry, I got it worng, than. No idea about google places
-
Zsolt, I believe the reviews are being left on the Google Places page, not on the website itself.
-
Maybe you can try restricting those people from leaving review with a htaccess. If they are clever they can still get arounf the restriction but the have got a harder time to do so. I don' know how it can be done technically but maybe you can restrict someone with a given mac address, so that a given computer will never be able to access your page again. Ban profiles and forbid e-mail addresses in the cms. I haven't got any better advices, these are machine algorythms so they do not see the face of the commenter. They can ve identified due to their ip, computer or e-mail.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google Places best practise
Hi, just wondering what peoples' thoughts are on linking from a Google Places listing; where multiple locations are present (and multiple Places listings), do people generally link back to the home page or to the individual location pages? I would be interested to hear anybody's thoughts. Thank you
Image & Video Optimization | | jasarrow0 -
Google Places Bulk Uploader
Hi we have 15 stores we want to transfer over to our main google places account. We can only claim them with google places bulk uploader. So from what i have read, i have to add each store to the spreadsheet then request bulk upload. Since these google places listings already exist, will the listings i create (via the spreadsheet) simply merge with the old ones? Or could there be a chance of the creation of duplicate listings (how can you avoid this). And is it necessary to add latitude and longitude points (because you don't have to add them)? The goal is to add the old listings into a our Google Places account, and can only use the bulk uploader. Thanks,
Image & Video Optimization | | Mattcarter08
George0 -
How do you fix a Google Places category issue?
I have a Google Places listing that has the category set to 'Garage Door Supplier', yet if you do a search in Maps on this same phrase and zoom into the area of the map where the business is located, it doesn't get flagged as a garage door supplier. If you just search on the business name, is does get flagged in the right location. I spoke with Google (yeah, an actual human) and they were baffled. The only suggestion they had was to try adding a few more categories to see if maybe that would force an update. Has anyone ran into this, and if so, did you find a fix?
Image & Video Optimization | | WebMO0 -
My worst performing pages all have this /products/ URL structure...?
I rank first for my brand "example" on example.com But my product pages simply don't rank. Frankly, I don't know where they rank, but it's not top 40. They are indexed, as searching "site:example.com" returns all my site's pages. My product pages are outranked even by some of my shorter blog posts about the product. My product pages are the only ones on the site that use a folder/directory in the url. example.com**/products/**product-one is nowhere but this is the main product page. example.com/short-blog-article-about-product-one. Is the fact that the product pages are with the slashes a red herring and I should be looking for anther cause? Or is google saying, well these product pages are the only ones in these sort of path and therefore we'll treat them as secondary sources? Thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | Brocberry0 -
Place pages
Anyone else having problems with google place pages? Create a page and then have it become merged with someone else's place page. Try to correct it to no avail? Try to delete it only to find that it still shows up?
Image & Video Optimization | | casper4340 -
Local SEO: What is the largest Google Places bulk upload you have ever done?
Hi All, One of my clients recently requested my team at our agency to do a bulk up load of business locations. We did the bulk upload and it came to around 652 or so locations in the form. I have done some serious bulk uploads in the past around 500 locations but never this high. My question is to SEO moz what is the largest bulk upload or single upload you have done on Google Places?
Image & Video Optimization | | JamesNorquay0 -
Whats is going on with Google Places?
I know they recently started rolling out their update of their Places pages but a lot of people, including myself are having problems such as missing descriptions, hours, categories (not updated), etc. Anyone have any insight into when we might expect these issues to be corrected? As far as I can tell Google has not really addressed the problem whatsoever. Their forum is packed with people complaining but so far so they have remained quiet. Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | PMC-3120870 -
Ranking Penalty in Google Places for Primary Cell Phone Number?
Say a business runs out of a home (so, technically, the address of the business has a land line). But the business owner works outdoors all day long and so really runs his business off his cell phone. Is it OK in Google Places to list the mobile phone as the primary contant number, and list the home phone as a secondary number? Or will Google penalize the business's ranking in local search results for using a cell number as the main number?
Image & Video Optimization | | keethgee0