Looks like review algorithm abuse

[Max-Levitskiy]

Hey guys,

I think this restaurant make some tricks with their negative feedbacks:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/3zVAkZD7YrVgEYyd9

We were in there with my wife, and went out because the waiter was rude with us. 

After that, we left this is information as a review. I wrote: 

"Rude service, we went out from there.

The worst experience in my life.

Not recommended it to anyone."

So, nothing violated the Google reviews rules. My wife left the review as well.

Then she found out that both of our reviews was unpunished with message "This may not follow our policies. See details for info on what you can do."

And I see there's almost zero negative feedbacks about the restaurant. And it wasn't some "super fancy restaurant", just a usual place which you won't expect to be treated to 4.9 rating. We have a lot of better places around, but still, they have negative feedbacks. And that's completely fine, it's impossible to fit for everyone. 

So, I guess they are abusing some Google's algorithms which prevents spam comments. 

Anyone knows if I can contact Google support somehow about it? 

[MortenCopenhagen]

Hi @Max-Levitskiy 

I looked at the listing and noticed that many reviews are from users with very few reviews. This is a sign that reviews could be manipulated.

Furthermore, almost all photos look like professional photos. This makes me believe that something fishy is going on here.

Two extremely negative reviews like what you shared within a short time could be triggering the spam filter.

Your statement The worst experience in my life is hopefully not accurate and certainly not realistic.  Reviews consisting of only general statements and no details like yours fail to prove you actually visited the place. 

You could reach out to the Google Business Profile team and suggest they take a look at the listing. https://support.google.com/business/gethelp?hl=en

Cheers 

Morten 

[Max-Levitskiy]

Thanks for your advice, I've sent a support ticket. 🙂 

But yep, this feedback is really true. ) Have you  ever had an experience, when waiter came to you, continue to ask you questions when you told him you need some time to select something from menu , and then when you ready for order, start to tell you that he will ask you more questions even if you show him you don't want to talk and came to spend time with your wife, start to conflict with you. 

I never had such experience before. ) So, yep. For us it really was a worse experience in restaurant. 🙂 

[KattyGeltmeyer]

Persoonlijk zou ik aan zo'n restaurant geen tijd verspillen en simpelweg een laag aantal sterren toekennnen. Als de kelner relevante vragen kwam stellen over het eten, is hij niet onbeleefd maar opdringerig. Dat kan storend zijn, maar wie weet wilde hij of zij het juist erg goed doen en was hij of zij nog niet lang in dienst. Het is niet simpel om een goed evenwicht te vinden tussen behulpzaam en opdringerig. Mijns inziens bevat een goede review het antwoord op de vraag: "wat zou ik zelf over deze locatie willen weten voordat ik er een bezoek aan breng?" en dan volstaat het niet door te schrijven dat de kelner onbeleefd is en dat dit een slechte ervaring was. Een restaurant waar ik niet gegeten heb, zou ik sowieso niet recenseren, want ik kan geen oordeel over eten en bediening vellen.

[Max-Levitskiy]

I think the service can be as important as food. Especially, if you can't eat because of the service. If I just want to eat, I can order the delivery. 🙂 

And I really think the waiter was an owner or something like that. 

I think it worth to spend some time to make this world a little bit better. And prevent "bad actors" to abuse the system. 🙂 

And as I said, I left a rating, but it was removed. 

[KattyGeltmeyer]

Okay, let's illustrate my words with another example: suppose that I am visiting a specific shop and the lady in the shop is impolite but also doesn't sell what I am looking for. I can write a review about the fact that the lady was impolite or wanted to sell me something I didn't want, but this is another kind of review than the ones I try to write. I only review a shop, restaurant etc. if I bought something, or have a feeling I can tell something that can be informative for others. Simply writing down "bad experience / food, ..." isn't informative. But if I would write down: "waiter was impolite or interrupting me in a way I felt uncomfortable with, ..., food was too salt, ..." this is explaining more what was going wrong. A review isn't meant for writing down your frustrations, it's meant for informing others in a way they can decide what to do. In short, you gave more info about this location in this post than you did when writing your review. It for sure can be that this restaurant is abusing Google's rules, but both sides have a responsibility: we as customers are also responsible for the good functioning of google maps platform.