I am seeing a lot of small businesses in my area (Orlando, Florida) with five stars, but all of their reviews are from users without profile pictures/only 1-3 review posts per account/all the reviews are five stars and 1-2 sentences that basically say the same thing…
My point is, I am pretty confident that these businesses either purchased their reviews from someone making multiple accounts or posted the reviews from multiple “fake” accounts themselves to achieve their 5-star status.
Am I being paranoid, or is anyone else seeing these patterns as well?
If the reviews are indeed fake, what can I/we do about it?
I have worked so hard to achieve my level 8 status and feel that my time and effort should be worth something…
Fake reviews will diminish the value of Google’s review platform and makes me feel like my hard work is not worth doing if it continues.
Thoughts???
Just because someone has no profile picture or only a few reviews doesn’t automatically mean the review is fake, @msfcreativemedia.
A lot of everyday customers don’t actively maintain their Google profiles. Most people aren’t level 8 reviewers — they just leave a review after a good (or bad) experience and move on. Short, positive reviews are also extremely common, especially for small businesses. Not everyone writes detailed feedback — many just say “Great service!” or “Loved it!” and that’s it.
Also, for small businesses, especially local ones, it’s possible they simply have loyal customers who genuinely want to help. It’s easy to misread sincere support from friends, family, or happy customers as something shady.
Google does have policies in place for clearly fraudulent behavior, and if something looks blatantly fake (like obvious spam patterns), we can report it.
Yes, thank you. I am aware that not every review without a profile picture is fake.
You completely missed the intention for my post.
I am simply pointing out patterns that I have noticed when suspecting a business has paid for their reviews. These patterns are present with several businesses in my area that sell the same type of products, are individually owned (small businesses), but again: This is not the formula for a one-size-fits-all pattern.
Reviews that don’t seem to be authentic and are the only driving force behind a 5-star reputation on Google is a problem, wether we choose to see it or not. This is a powerful tool that currently allows for manipulation. It’s just the way it is, but I think it deserves a conversation to see if there are any ideas to change this.
A 5-star representation of a business SHOULD be achieved by receiving authentic reviews from customers and show the reality of the customer’s real relationship, opinion, and experience with the business. It should also reflect on the businesses true interaction and understanding of their customers, regardless of wether the review was positive or negative. Negative reviews offer the opportunity to flaunt 5-star customer service skills. How does this business handle problems? How do they show that they are listening when there are comments for suggestive criticisms? Do they value their customers by attempting, when the “show fits”, to apply changes suggested by their customers to better serve their community?
Creating a false representation of these interactions devalues what we do and who we are, not just as Local Guides, but also as the businesses who are listed on it with authenticity.