Updated: November 12, 2018 to reflect that review gating is not a new policy that Google initiated in April 2018 and added examples of cases where Google acted on businesses that were review gating. When I saw the review guidelines change on April 12, 2018, I assumed that Google had updated their policies to indicate..
Mordy Oberstein tweeted to me this morning about his observation that Mt Everest has been plagued with dozends of fake reviews. I think Google has a fake review problem when it comes to Earth’s most famous landmarks. Here’s one for Mt. Everest & despite some of these being hilarious, they are of course fake. Same..
Jan 8, 2018 Update: Google now clarifies that all reviews from competitors & employees are against guidelines. Before, it stated that posting negative content about a current/former employment experience wasn’t allowed and on January 5 they removed the word “negative”. Before, it stated that posting negative content about a competitor to manipulate their rankings wasn’t allowed..
Creating fake reviews might seem like a great way to boost your business’s local profile, but the consequences far outweigh the benefits. After all, you’re not just violating Google’s guidelines – you’re breaking the law.
If you’re a small business owner who actively gets reviews, it’s likely that you’ve ran into a case where some of your reviews on your Google My Business listing randomly vanished. Google has an active algorithmic filter in place to remove reviews that violate their policies. Before you get all excited thinking this filter is..
One of the most common questions I run into at the Google & Your Business Forum (Google Places Forum) is people wanting to know why their reviews got filtered. The first step to figuring that out is to track down the reviews and looking for patterns to see why it might have been filtered. But..
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