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Yelp Vs Google: How They Deal with False Reviews

October 3, 2023
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Yelp Vs Google: How They Deal with False Reviews

Digital Journal Blog

Online customer reviews play an enormously influential role in reputation and purchase decisions. However, the anonymity and scale of sites like Google and Yelp also make them vulnerable to false and misleading reviews. Here’s an in-depth look at how these major platforms handle fake review issues and enforce their guidelines:

Highlights

Google’s Policies Against Fake Reviews
Yelp’s Policies Against Fake Reviews
Why Fake Reviews Remain Prevalent
Best Practices for Consumers
Best Practices for Businesses
The Importance of Authenticity

Google’s Policies Against Fake Reviews

Google prohibits fake, paid, and incentivized reviews in their guidelines for any business listings on Google Search, Maps, or other properties. Specifically, forbidden practices include:

Posting reviews under false identities or pretending to be customers
Companies or agents writing positive reviews about themselves
Paying or rewarding people for positive reviews
Asking buyers to modify or remove negative reviews
Artificially boosting ratings through various means

To detect false reviews, Google utilizes automated algorithms and manual human reviewers. Signals like review patterns, account information, and sudden spikes or drops in ratings all help identify suspicious activity.

When fake reviews are identified, Google will remove the policy-violating content. More serious or large-scale violations can lead to posted consumer alerts about faked reviews, removal from Google listings entirely, or restricting the business’s ability to create content in the future.

Google also provides tools for businesses to report fraudulent or irrelevant reviews for investigation. However, businesses are strictly prohibited from incentivizing positive reviews themselves in any way.

Reviewers who continually violate policies may be banned entirely from leaving future reviews on any Google platform. Overall, the consequences for posting fake reviews aim to curb financial incentives and maintain accuracy.

Yelp’s Policies Against Fake Reviews

Yelp similarly prohibits false, paid, or biased reviews in their terms of service and content guidelines. Specific prohibited practices include:

Friends, employees, or owners pretending to be customers
Paying or rewarding for positive reviews
Review solicitation services
Only allowing positive reviews to be seen
Threatening retaliation for negative reviews

To detect questionable reviews, Yelp uses automated recommendation software and manual investigation by content moderation teams. Reviews deemed unreliable based on various analysis signals are labeled “not recommended” and excluded from the business’s overall star rating and review count.

If investigation concludes that reviews were falsified, incentivized, or otherwise fail to meet guidelines, Yelp will remove them entirely. For businesses caught orchestrating or encouraging fake positive reviews, Yelp may post a consumer alert on the listing and strip abilities like review solicitation and response.

Yelp users who repeatedly try posting fake reviews despite warnings will be banned permanently from the platform. A specialized Yelp team focuses expressly on suspicious activity, fake reviews, and other platform violations to enforce policies.

Why Fake Reviews Remain Prevalent

Despite the efforts of Google, Yelp, and other platforms, unreliable reviews persist for several reasons:

Financial incentives remain strong to unfairly boost reputations through deception.
Sophisticated fake review networks have grown adept at appearing genuine.
Private Facebook groups and other channels make faked reviews harder to detect.

The potential profits for reputation management services that simulate authentic reviews present an ongoing cat-and-mouse game for platforms. And consumers often struggle to distinguish carefully faked reviews from truthful ones.

Best Practices for Consumers

The most cautious approach for consumers includes:

Looking for subtle signs like generic language or dodgy accounts.
Researching a company’s reputation from multiple independent sources.
Reporting suspicious review activity directly to Google or Yelp for investigation.
Taking highly positive or negative review sets with skepticism.
Focusing more on the content itself rather than star ratings alone.

Best Practices for Businesses

Ethical businesses should:

Avoid shady reputation management companies promising falsified reviews.
Concentrate on improving customer satisfaction, not reviews themselves.
Flag suspicious/inaccurate reviews about your business to the platform.
Remain patient, as results take time through legitimate practices.

The Importance of Authenticity

In the end, fake reviews undermine platform trust and credibility. But when businesses refrain from manipulation and focus on delivering quality transparently, they build credibility that resonates more deeply with consumers.

While getting business reviews right remains an ongoing challenge, the stakes are too high for platforms to be complacent. Google, Yelp and others will continue evolving their detection methods and doubling down on review authenticity – the bedrock of their value.

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