Transcription
Have you ever read a glowing review and thought, "Is this even real?" Well, you're not alone. In 2023, Google cracked down on 45% more fake reviews than in the year before. But despite the crackdown, fake reviews are still everywhere.
So why do businesses still buy five-star reviews? And more importantly, what are the hidden risks that nobody's talking about? If you own a business or trust online reviews, you're going to want to hear this.
On my very long 16-hour flight to Uganda this year, I decided to listen to a whole bunch of SEO podcasts. There was one in particular that caught my interest. It was on Craig Campbell's podcast. He was talking about basically people that buy reviews and discussed this interesting trend or pattern that he had noticed.
Basically, Google has a filter to figure out if your reviews are real or fake, and they use a variety of factors. What he was talking about, though, is that if you are a business that has seen a lot of fake reviews and they've removed a lot of those reviews, it actually makes it so that the filter on your business is stricter.
So imagine this: you have a business that buys a bunch of reviews. You get a review block on your listing for, let's say, six months. Well, guess what? After that review block is off your listing, you're going to have an insane time trying to get new reviews to publish.
You'll send your listing to real customers for real reviews, but because you violated so many of Google's guidelines, that criteria they have is so much stricter that it actually makes it harder for the business to recover. That is fascinating.
I wonder, and maybe you haven't even thought about this, maybe over time. Does this evolving restriction filter, however you want to think of this, does it change? For instance, you've got a certain level of a block because Google's like, "Man, 40% of your historical reviews were fake." So moving forward, you're going to have trouble getting them.
Can you get to a point that you're aware of where you're on this end of the spectrum, no reviews coming through? Can you move it back to the other end and get back into Google's good graces? I mean, I certainly hope so.
But so far, for the businesses that I've seen, it's been hard to get off the ground. It's like running a race with weights on your legs—significantly harder to get those results.
So again, I think Google is actually moving in the right direction with the way that they are tackling this fake review problem. Before this year, I really wasn't seeing a lot of patterns that gave me any hope. This is the first time that I'm like, "Oh wow, there are severe consequences."
Not only could you have a review block, but now you're actually going to have a really hard time getting legitimate reviews as well if Google catches you.
We talked a little bit earlier about buying reviews as being something you probably don't want to get into. I feel like you've heard a little bit more of this through Craig's podcast and maybe some other ones as well. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Yeah, the general trend that I heard on all the podcasts I listened to is that people that are selling reviews are having a much harder time getting reviews to stick than previously. I actually heard a few people say that they've given up on it and they're not even bothering anymore, which is great.
I personally don't want a world that is full of fake reviews on Google. It's also good for all of our WhatsApp accounts because they're going to be less saturated with people trying to sell us fake reviews. So I think that's good for humanity, really.
And I'd love to see, in general, are you guys finding that the trend is getting better or worse? What are you seeing with listings on Google? Are you seeing more fake reviews or are you seeing less?
I'd love to hear about it in the comments. Feel free to drop us a comment. We respond to all of them and read them all.