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> I wouldn't be surprised if the business had been able to pay money to Google to be able to check reviews There is no way to do this that I can find documenta

> I wouldn't be surprised if the business had been able to pay money to Google to be able to check reviews There is no way to do this that I can find documentation of on the public internet. You'd think if it were possible, someone would have written a howto guide. Personally, I'm deeply skeptical that any such mechanism exists. The revenue it would generate would be negligible and the potential for reputation loss significant.

tines 6y ago
> There is no way to do this that I can find documentation of on the public internet. And you used Google search to look for it, right? ... (Kidding.)
liaukovv 6y ago
There is probably a button for business owner to complain about a review, for example in case of competitor bombing? Since nothing on google can be appealed this button is as good as removal of reviews at will And if your affiliation to this business is based on ad spend then well...
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  Again, I can't find even a hint of how to do this on the internet. If there is a way, you'd expect it to be documented given what surely must be widespread interest in the subject. Basically what we have here is an entirely unsubstantiated and unlikely accusation. (Unlikely because the incentives simply are not aligned.)
  - ghoward 6y ago
    Saying "I wouldn't be surprised if..." is not an accusation, unless you count the implied "I don't trust Google" as an accusation.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
      If you said of someone, "I wouldn't be surprised if they were a thief," that would rightly be viewed as a pseudo-accusation of thievery or other dishonesty. It doesn't literally mean the same thing as "he is a thief," but saying you believe someone has a decent chance of being a thief is still a type of accusation -- one of dishonesty and distrust. If the belief is unjustified, then I think it's fair to call it an unsubstantiated accusation. But if that doesn't work for you, pretend I called it an unsubstantiated implication instead. Either way, I think we all understood what the OP meant, and we all understood what I meant in my response. So at least we are communicating.
      - ghoward 6y ago
        We are sort of communicating. I _am_ the OP. And I only meant it as "I don't trust Google." I'll let you decide if that implication is unsubstantiated or not.
        asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
        You should just say that, then. If I don't trust someone, that doesn't mean it's OK to go around and imply that they do some absurd malicious thing I have absolutely no evidence they actually do. It's fine not to trust them. Spreading unsubstantiated rumors and implications is not fine.
        mewpmewp2 6y ago
        I just wanted to mention that I adore the way you articulated and called out everything that was going on here.
        pbhjpbhj 6y ago
        You go out each day and pigeons have shat (pooped) on your car. Today you go out and there's a pigeon sitting on the branch over your car, you scare it away. Your friend is like "what did you do that for, you have no evidence this pigeon poops on cars!". Your [asdfasgasdgasdg] position is "this pigeon might be fine" the OP's position appears to be [or at least, mine is] "pigeons are probably going to poop on my car". You're saying his position is insubstantiated ... It's the difference between treating Google as unique, and treating them as a member of a class of businesses. It's not insubstantiated, it's just a different form of substantiation. If all advertising businesses the OP has dealt with before were underhanded then your position looks to them like "today is unique, maybe the sun won't rise". tl;dr you can substantiate a position based on general behaviours of items in a class, it's not necessarily wrong, and can be just a different model.
dgr582systems 6y ago
I don’t know how they did it, but a doctor surgery near me (UK) had a large number of negative reviews up for several years. About one week ago, I looked and they now have one single 5 star review. So, anecdotally, there is at least some way to get the reviews removed.
vorpalhex 6y ago
As a business owner, you only need to claim the review is fraudulant and that will usually get it removed. In theory a review hoster is supposed to evaluate claims and act on reasonable ones. In practice review hosters are terrified of getting sued and will take down reviews easily. I suspect most local businesses hire "reputation fixing" firms to actually do this dirty work for them.
- Dyac 6y ago
  I helped a couple of small businesses set up maps business listings a few years back. One was going great for years then in about 3-4 days got a bunch of fraudulent bad reviews from a disgruntled ex exployee. We tried for months to remove them, every single way possible but were never able to. In the end we had to nuke the whole Google business listing, which wasn't easy either.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    You can reply though, IIRC. A good response to a negative review is a massive plus to me. Aside: somehow businesses get moved - even major ones like a local McDo got moved to the wrong location. Takes weeks for corrections from when I report them. I really can't understand that one. This too could be a killer for a small business, getting shifted to the wrong location. In a similar vein, I'm forever having to report our opening hours and things to Facebook as we don't have any (small craft shop, open by arrangement) and people insist on adding some. It's all really weirdly handled. I suppose it's the presence of untrustworthy parties in such disclosures though Google should have enough trust signals to weight users input.
- Const-me 6y ago
  > review hosters are terrified of getting sued I wish Google would be terrified of getting sued, but we both know this is not gonna happen. My friend is a business owner. She received couple one-star reviews on google maps from customers she never had (she’s a real estate developer, real estate is expensive, she doesn’t have many customers). Wasn’t able to do anything about them.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
Kinda like how they handle false copyright claims by not taking down the content, oh wait ... that seems a similar situation in that acting on false content takedown requests doesn't get them [much/any] revenue and provides a relational hit to users (but pleases some huge customers, no doubt). Someone has given a credible mechanism for take down, report it as fraudulent. I find it highly likely that if you have a paying B2B relationship - eg you're a high paying advertising client, that you'd be able to report "frauds" and get immediate action. But if course I've wouldn't know, and presumably Google would have NDAs for businesses in any special access (it would also be detrimental to the business to disclose it and risk losing the special access). All we've really got is our TrustRank RTM on our part experiences with Google and similar corps.

tines 6y ago

> There is no way to do this that I can find documentation of on the public internet. And you used Google search to look for it, right? ... (Kidding.)

liaukovv 6y ago

There is probably a button for business owner to complain about a review, for example in case of competitor bombing? Since nothing on google can be appealed this button is as good as removal of reviews at will And if your affiliation to this business is based on ad spend then well...

asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
Again, I can't find even a hint of how to do this on the internet. If there is a way, you'd expect it to be documented given what surely must be widespread interest in the subject. Basically what we have here is an entirely unsubstantiated and unlikely accusation. (Unlikely because the incentives simply are not aligned.)
- ghoward 6y ago
  Saying "I wouldn't be surprised if..." is not an accusation, unless you count the implied "I don't trust Google" as an accusation.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
    If you said of someone, "I wouldn't be surprised if they were a thief," that would rightly be viewed as a pseudo-accusation of thievery or other dishonesty. It doesn't literally mean the same thing as "he is a thief," but saying you believe someone has a decent chance of being a thief is still a type of accusation -- one of dishonesty and distrust. If the belief is unjustified, then I think it's fair to call it an unsubstantiated accusation. But if that doesn't work for you, pretend I called it an unsubstantiated implication instead. Either way, I think we all understood what the OP meant, and we all understood what I meant in my response. So at least we are communicating.
    - ghoward 6y ago
      We are sort of communicating. I _am_ the OP. And I only meant it as "I don't trust Google." I'll let you decide if that implication is unsubstantiated or not.
      - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
        You should just say that, then. If I don't trust someone, that doesn't mean it's OK to go around and imply that they do some absurd malicious thing I have absolutely no evidence they actually do. It's fine not to trust them. Spreading unsubstantiated rumors and implications is not fine.
        mewpmewp2 6y ago
        I just wanted to mention that I adore the way you articulated and called out everything that was going on here.
        pbhjpbhj 6y ago
        You go out each day and pigeons have shat (pooped) on your car. Today you go out and there's a pigeon sitting on the branch over your car, you scare it away. Your friend is like "what did you do that for, you have no evidence this pigeon poops on cars!". Your [asdfasgasdgasdg] position is "this pigeon might be fine" the OP's position appears to be [or at least, mine is] "pigeons are probably going to poop on my car". You're saying his position is insubstantiated ... It's the difference between treating Google as unique, and treating them as a member of a class of businesses. It's not insubstantiated, it's just a different form of substantiation. If all advertising businesses the OP has dealt with before were underhanded then your position looks to them like "today is unique, maybe the sun won't rise". tl;dr you can substantiate a position based on general behaviours of items in a class, it's not necessarily wrong, and can be just a different model.

dgr582systems 6y ago

I don’t know how they did it, but a doctor surgery near me (UK) had a large number of negative reviews up for several years. About one week ago, I looked and they now have one single 5 star review. So, anecdotally, there is at least some way to get the reviews removed.

vorpalhex 6y ago

As a business owner, you only need to claim the review is fraudulant and that will usually get it removed. In theory a review hoster is supposed to evaluate claims and act on reasonable ones. In practice review hosters are terrified of getting sued and will take down reviews easily. I suspect most local businesses hire "reputation fixing" firms to actually do this dirty work for them.

Dyac 6y ago
I helped a couple of small businesses set up maps business listings a few years back. One was going great for years then in about 3-4 days got a bunch of fraudulent bad reviews from a disgruntled ex exployee. We tried for months to remove them, every single way possible but were never able to. In the end we had to nuke the whole Google business listing, which wasn't easy either.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  You can reply though, IIRC. A good response to a negative review is a massive plus to me. Aside: somehow businesses get moved - even major ones like a local McDo got moved to the wrong location. Takes weeks for corrections from when I report them. I really can't understand that one. This too could be a killer for a small business, getting shifted to the wrong location. In a similar vein, I'm forever having to report our opening hours and things to Facebook as we don't have any (small craft shop, open by arrangement) and people insist on adding some. It's all really weirdly handled. I suppose it's the presence of untrustworthy parties in such disclosures though Google should have enough trust signals to weight users input.
Const-me 6y ago
> review hosters are terrified of getting sued I wish Google would be terrified of getting sued, but we both know this is not gonna happen. My friend is a business owner. She received couple one-star reviews on google maps from customers she never had (she’s a real estate developer, real estate is expensive, she doesn’t have many customers). Wasn’t able to do anything about them.
asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago

pbhjpbhj 6y ago

Kinda like how they handle false copyright claims by not taking down the content, oh wait ... that seems a similar situation in that acting on false content takedown requests doesn't get them [much/any] revenue and provides a relational hit to users (but pleases some huge customers, no doubt). Someone has given a credible mechanism for take down, report it as fraudulent. I find it highly likely that if you have a paying B2B relationship - eg you're a high paying advertising client, that you'd be able to report "frauds" and get immediate action. But if course I've wouldn't know, and presumably Google would have NDAs for businesses in any special access (it would also be detrimental to the business to disclose it and risk losing the special access). All we've really got is our TrustRank RTM on our part experiences with Google and similar corps.