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Fake Reviews: How Do the Major Websites Deal with Them, If at All?


DaveO

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Interesting article comparing and contrasting how Yelp and Google differ in dealing with faked reviews.

(To be transparent I’ve spoken and interacted with the author in the past).

Nobody that I know has a count on the number or percentage of faked reviews on google or yelp (or other sources) but it is large as an absolute number—as far as percentage it is anyone’s guess.  If you wish to get a feel for how active the demand is for faked reviews go to Facebook, as one example, and search for a term such as “review swap(ping)” and join a Facebook group.  You will see requests for review swaps or paid fake review services every day.  That is just in one group.

Anyway the article summarizes to the best of the authors current understanding how Yelp and Google differ in handling fake reviews.

I’ve “studied” this phenomena for a while and a bit.  I generally agree with the author’s findings.

I use google and yelp reviews.  I always want to see current reviews vs the default settings by google or yelp.

Lastly while restaurants, hotels, and a few other industries naturally attract reviews most business types have to ask customers for reviews—-and they do.   

(edit)Amazon also has a significant fake review problem.  An April 2018 article describes the scope of the problem referencing a WashPo article that dug into the effort to reveal the scope of fake Amazon reviews.  

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3 hours ago, DaveO said:

I've learned that getting help from Facebook on anything is well nigh impossible. I think they made the right move in creating a new FB page and disabling reviews.

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2 hours ago, Bob Wells said:

I've learned that getting help from Facebook on anything is well nigh impossible. I think they made the right move in creating a new FB page and disabling reviews.

Completely agree - there was no other feasible alternative.

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The following is a list of some of the local businesses that are suspected of having fake reviews on google.

Google reviews are and have been for the past few years the most visible to searchers and they increase in volume far faster than any other source of reviews.

A Pretty big list;  over 2,000 of them.   It appears to me that restaurants are NOT a major category among the spammers/targets of spammers (I only scanned the list). OTOH I am sure this list is incomplete and possibly very incomplete 

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