(I wasn’t really sure where to share this, it’s a bit travel, a bit food & drink but for me it’s more about highlighting the manipulation of reviews so I thought I’d go for “how-tos”)
I absolutely love Prague and have followed the Honest Guide channel for years now, Janek & Honza produce some really great content and present it in an entertaining way (a must watch for anyone thinking of going there or just to learn more).
Their latest video discusses a subject close to us all, the manipulation of Google reviews to make people think a place is better than it really is, in this case a tourist trap that sells fairly basic meat by weight and rips tourists off in the process. They discuss how a really badly rated entry on Google has suddenly jumped and received an influx of 5* reviews with a lot of these from people with only 1 review and with a lot of them coming from Indonesia (where most people wouldn’t eat pork). We’ve probably all seen these odd reviews where a random person suddenly feels compelled to sign up and then only post once, they always look a bit suspect
Janek is also careful to point out that Google reviews (and they highlight this happens on Tripadvisor too) are really important but that they have to be honest, in a positive or negative way, it’s a nice watch IMO, let me know your thoughts and give them a thumbs up and a follow if you liked it (I have no connection, I’m just a fan of what they do).
Google is actually doing a great job for identifying and removing this kind of tricks, but unfortunately not everything is possible to do with an algorithm, so our help in this is extremely important.
Thanks @ErmesT for the tag and thanks @turbotapeworm for sharing about this here. Unfortunately, as no name of the location is mentioned, we can’t escalate this to our responsible teams to investigate.
Hi @ErmesT - thanks for taking the time to reply, I’m mainly posting this for entertainment to be honest as I think we’re all aware this practice goes on as LGs, it’s just nice to see it being discussed outside of our world.
You’re quite right that Google do an awful lot to prevent this kind of stuff from happening or respond to it quickly when we report things so it’s not something I’m concerned about as such, in fact I couldn’t even find this place on Maps now (as “Staropražská šunka - Old Prague Ham” or “Staropražská šunka” or even “Old Prague Ham”) so maybe they’ve already taken them off following reports from LGs and users already @AngieYC . It’s all good as far as I’m concerned.
I can see that someone has added “Ham for scam” at the same location though so that probably needs removing
I just wanted to share this as it’s always interesting to see how others interact with “our world” on Maps and remind people that this kind of thing can happen, albeit not for long in cases like this.
It’s also nice to have the whole reviews process promoted as I wish more people would benefit from these great features.
I often come across Facebook groups dedicated to mostly selling and some buying of fake reviews. Their selling point is often 100% stick review. I take this as a blatant admission they have problems with fake reviews getting hidden.
I also follow the honest guide .
May I suggest you reach out to him to get the location data needed for @AngieYC to escalate this?
I presume there’s a whole dishonest underbelly of people offering these services online @MortenCopenhagen , I’ve seen the Facebook ones and on places like fivver but always hope people see right through these when they get published.
As for the location of this particular place, as mentioned above it seems to have disappeared from Maps now but I believe it’s one of the vendors at the side of the famous Staroměstské nám / the Old Town Square
If you zoom in on this image to the man in the yellow t-shirt you can see the place behind him… that said it looks like all that sweet tourist money has allowed them to upgrade the stand to a nicer one based on the Honest Guide video
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