Dealers flooding review sites with fake user reviews

[ed.brooks]

It sure doesn't look like Google has a handle on false reviews. This was in my RSS feed this morning from Mike Blumenthal's great blog.

October 26, 2011

It’s Time for Google Places to Treat Reviews Like a Grown Up

Category: Google Places (Maps & Local) – Mike – 6:00 am
The recent use of Google’s review platform in Alabama to lambast a local deli’s Place page with hate reviews (and the attendant backlash) is but one example of why Google needs to implement better control over the reviews appearing on the Places pages.
Here is another. Earlier this week, one reviewer, Samantha, left 15 reviews in one day. Fourteen of them were 1 and 2 star reviews and One was a 5 star review. All for lawyers in Philadelphia. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist nor a sophisticated algo to recognize that these reviews are bogus. Samantha you naughty girl.
Google needs act like an adult and put in place processes to stop allowing a business’s Place Page being used like as substitute for a Voodoo doll in doing damage to a business.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Funny you post that Ed. I just said to someone the other day that most of the reviews I find on google places are junk. And usually don't have any quality associated to them. It's like reading a string of comments on a YouTube video. Worthless. Google has a way to go before the quality of their reviews have any substance.

 

[ejyoder]

Funny you post that Ed. I just said to someone the other day that most of the reviews I find on google places are junk. And usually don't have any quality associated to them. It's like reading a string of comments on a YouTube video. Worthless. Google has a way to go before the quality of their reviews have any substance.

I agree that a lot of Google Places reviews are weak, but what is a dealer that's not in a major metro area to do? It seems that we get very little traffic to sites like Yelp, etc. I know many customers are finding us on Google, so do we still worry about all the other potential review sites as well? There is very little DealerRater activity in our area also.

 

[JamieS]

Maybe Samantha is just a total *****? Although She looks quite professional!

Back on topic...

Google really should have figured out how to police this stuff BEFORE making all of these things (reviews, places, etc.) influence ranking and relevance. Businesses are going to do what ever it takes to make the effect positive. What did they think was going to happen?

Different review sites do things differently as well which makes managing everything difficult. Dealer Rater has been nothing but great with us. If we have a negative review there is a clear cut process in handling it. If we do our due diligence and it is found to be false it is removed.

Yelp! on the other hand is a pain in my..... I do not appreciate them choosing only to display negative reviews on the main business page for the sake of maintaining review validity. City Search (which seems to be Bing's main review provider) makes you pay if you want to respond to comments.

Let's not forget too that MOST consumers will only choose to leave reviews when they feel some wrong has been done to them or if they're floored with excellent service. Although this whole reputation management stuff has changed my ways recently, historically I would only leave a review if I was totally blown away. I think this is still how the average consumer feels. Now it's just working on that realization, and trying to 'blow away' the customer with service and attentiveness.

I look into a lot of our reviewers on sites like Yelp! and City Search to see what else they reviewed. You would think think some of them are vying for their own show on the Travel Channel! It also gives me a heads up (along with talking to sales/service) on who I may be dealing with when it comes to responding. How do you even respond to someone who bought a 10 year old 150k mile as is car for $3,000 cash and 4 months later is upset that the car needs work?

Not going to lie, we are employing a company that is being hammered in this thread. When I got here we needed help fast and culture change does not happen overnight. This particular solution is doing it's job for now, but we will be moving on in the near future as I have been noticing some of the very same things brought up in this discussion and have now had some time to really study other practices and how to implement.

 

[Glenn Jimerson]

Of all the review sites, Google has the fewest safeguards against fake reviews and Yelp is the polar opposite. Yelp uses a bayesian algorithm which is what most email SPAM filters use. Of course its heavily modified and geared towards their needs. And, as we've all experienced, they throw out a lot of legitimate reviews, good and bad, in the process.

Google prefers to solve problems on a macro level with algorithms. Some smart folks at Cornell University came up with one to spot fake reviews. Here is the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/technology/finding-fake-reviews-online.html?_r=2. Most likely they'll develop or acquire this in order to increase review quality.

Unfortunately, none of this helps us in the short-term. For now, I'd recommend responding to the reviews even if they are patently fake. I'd be very cautious about calling any of them out for it. That could get ugly fast. Be judicious about reporting the problems to Google. False reviews are against their TOS and a properly worded appeal can be very powerful.

 

[Brice Englert]

Great topic here Jeff, @PrimeResponse just returning from #PubCon with some very interesting information on Google quality control practices. It all ties back to the Panda changes of a few weeks ago and the word on the street is actually contrary to normal Google doctrine of macro-algorithmic influences... instead, they are using 1,000s of individuals to review big swaths of content and upgrade or degrade individuals posts and businesses Places Page. The algorithm then observes and learns from this manual intervention. Anyone out there see there CID change? Then change back? There you have an example of manual intervention and usually that happens when companies like Review Boost are used to leave a concentrated # of 5 star reviews laden with non-sensical keywords consumers would never use.

Make sense huh? Do you really think Google is going to allow this kind of abuse in the long term?

What we all know is Panda loves fresh content... what could be more fresh than legitimate consumer sentiment, left by individuals, form disparate IPs.

 

[Jeffrey Tognetti]

@Jason Stum

We openly admit to falsifying reviews? It is hard to imagine based on the slide you would write that....
Here is what we say in the slide referenced below:


1) Increase overall dealer rating
2) Unique Usernames created for each review


**We do this by using the email address given to us from the dealers CSI reports**


3) WE POST POSITIVE WRITTEN LETTERS, COMMENTS AND REVIEWS ON BEHALF OF YOUR CUSTOMERS
4) Bury negative reviews


**Many of which are from other dealers wrongly posting inaccurate and disparging comments about competitors**


5) Proactively respond to negative reviews


I could go on and on about this but I'll finish by saying that Dealer Rater can make their service infinitely better if they had a feed of dealership CSI from the manufacturer instead of solely relying on individuals reviews, many of which have their own agendas in posting said reviews well after the time of sale. By using the manufacturer CSI it would authenticate that the individual posting did in fact purchase a car or utilize a dealership's service-
Here is the full slide for your reference:


http://mediarevo.com/files/2011/01/social-6-enlarged.jpg

 

[Jeffrey Tognetti]

@Ryan Leslie @DealerRater
I understand yours is a paid service but...

1) Does Dealer Rater have any way to verify that the individual posting a complaint or positive review did in fact purchase a car or utilized a dealership's service?

2) If I am a dealership and a person posts something negative about my business, why do I have to pay your service to respond? Wouldn't you want my side of the story with out forcing me to pay to tell it?

I'll make this so simple for Dealer Rater:

Dealer Rater can make their service infinitely better if they took a feed of dealership CSI from the manufacturers instead of, or in conjunction with allowing individual posts. Many of the individual posters have their own agendas and post reviews well after the time of sale or service (if in fact a sale or service took place at all). By using Manufacturer CSI it would help confirm the authenticity of the review good or bad, and that the "reviewer" did in fact purchase a car or service from the dealership confirmed VIA the manufacturer.

Have A Great Day!

 

[ddavis]

Brice, it isn't difficult to have different IPs. A first year networking student that knows how to configure subnets and having dynamic IPs can set this up. At the MSDOS prompt screen: Type 'ipconfig /release' and press 'enter'.

 

[ddavis]

For obvious reasons I can't speak to all reviews on all sites, but I can tell you that you can't game the system forever without getting caught and I am worried for the dealers that are burning money with so-called "Reputation Management" companies.

Ryan, what is the incentive for DealerRater to enforce penalties when the dealer is "Dealer Rater Certified"? I believe DealerRater is a for-profit business.

You are going to have a hard time convincing many of us that it isn't wide spread and poorly enforced. It is going to become common knowledge that reviews are being jicked. It will be another black eye for the car business.