Have ability to mark other reviews as helpful

[mwaceu]

I am really struggling to write reviews which are then marked as helpful.  I've seen a lot of advice on how to write a good review which I have listened to. However it doesn't seem to make a difference.  I have gone as far as reviewing my reviews to see which have been marked as helpful but there is nothing in common.  In fact, one review was simply "It was good" and got marked. It doesn't make any sense.

It got me thinking. How many reviews written by others have I marked as helpful?  Probably not a lot. The reason why is because I check reviews before I go somewhere and not after.  How can I mark the review as helpful if I have never been there and seen for myself.

So here's my idea/feature request. Once I have finished writing a review, I am automatically sent to the reviews from other people where I have the opportunity to mark them as helpful. Perhaps I only seen 5 random reviews or a list which goes on and on; It doesn't matter.  The point is, after writing my review, I get to mark other people as well.

[Phunky]

@mwaceu Really interesting point about the logic of it. I like your idea. I think Google will probably have some form of semantic pairing. They produce a similar review to yours and say - 'hey was this a similar experience to yours, is it useful?' The local guide who wrote it gets notified and asked the same (vice versa) to vote yours.

This process and being useful needs to be made real. I tell you why. There's a shady side to this story. Fake reviews getting upvoted. I see it happening regularly.

You can spot fake reviews on maps quite easily. A guy or girl, sometimes spelling their name incorrectly. They stand out as only doing 1 review, 0 photos. These ghost accounts upvote favourable posts from fake accounts by saying its useful. They push the bad (and probably real) reviews out of view. Typically it's a nudge bad reviews down 4-6 places, with fake reviews.

I've seen some of the weirdest types of businesses and I wonder, why would a 1 review, 0 photo guy want to review this place with 4 words and give it five stars. Recently I suspect a very poor businesses using such a tactic. This activity is known as a 'black hat' local SEO tactic to get PR fixers for poor reviews. 

The only way I get to the bottom of this is there's a monitor review activity. No review, or reviews under 200 characters should be flagged. Nothing for 6 months it disappears the upvotes 'for being useful' for locations they've said is useful. 

Maybe at ConnectLive2018 I'll bring this up.

[JanVanHaver]

Hello @mwaceu, one of the reasons why some reviews are getting marked as useful: the POI has a marketing manager who is aware of the value of reviews and systematically marks reviews for that POI as useful. (Claimed businesses get an alert if there is a new review, so these will typically come in within 24h or so after posripo the review) 

[mwaceu]

@Phunky I have noticed a few rogue reviews.  If I see them, I assume all the reviews are fake and ignore the business. Which is a shame because as you say, there could be genuine reviews. I'm certainly interested in what has comes out of ConnectLive2018 and I'm definitely keen to help out others.

[mwaceu]

@JanVanHaver This makes sense. I would probably do something similar.  It proves the value of having a good marketing team.

[Phunky]

@JanVanHaver @mwaceu There's a big difference between Yelp and Google reviews. I think Google Maps could be more relevant, that means taking a harder line. The helpful reviews I regularly see as 'not so relevant' and sadly manipulated. I am aware of  'reputation management agencies' in the travel, gastronomy and real estate sectors actively abusing Google Maps policies. Proving it client side, not on the technical side is hard. One way would be looking at IP addresses and activities for sure. As @JanVanHaver said, marketing departments are on this as the rewards are great.

Forbes article attests to this; "Obviously, online reviews are beneficial, as long as you have lots of positive reviews in your corner. Positive reviews give new customers a better impression of your brand, and can boost your company’s visibility in local search results, as well as boosting your presence in the review platform’s search results. The exact nature of Google’s search algorithm isn’t publicly available, but generally, the better your reviews are, the higher you’ll rank."

So there is an incentive for owners to get good reviews. The second said his. "business went from being listed in sixth place in Yelp’s search results to not being in the first five pages of results for their main keyword," after it was found he was soliciting reviews. Google Maps should give this some thought. 

I personally align to Yelp's strict differentiation.

Being a local guide, our integrity, consistency, impartiality and altruism for doing reviews is what makes our vocation so rewarding. Our reviews as specialisms, locations, frequency and review concentration as I've written elsewhere on the forum should feature as 'more useful' rather than having up-voted as 'useful' in a public forum that can be manipulated. Believe me I think 'helpful' tag is a great feature. Sadly, I see and I know it's abused as the rewards are too high for unscrupulous businesses 😞