Google Reviews Disappeared!?!?!? What's the deal?

[yagoparamo]

kcar is correct. If the review is left from a new account and that account is not used again or often, the review is flagged (potentially removed). This is typically not an issue if your customer is using an Android device. I also believe that Google is comparing review scores on G+L to other "trusted" review sites like Yelp and City Search to see if the sentiment is close. If not, that could flag you as well. It is important to have a review strategy that includes many sources and ultimately let the consumer decide where to post.

I have been suggesting to my dealers that they look for Android devices when soliciting reviews, and definitely ask for a G+L review. If they are not sure, or if it is a non-Android device, I suggest asking if the consumer has a Gmail account, and if the consumer does not, or is not sure, ask if they use Yelp, and if not, ask if they could leave a review on Dealer Rater, City Search, Insider Pages, or Other. This tactic is definitely working, with the goal to always go for G+L first, but have alternatives and do not push G+L too hard.

Ok but this is old news, we knew that.

However things seem to be working fine until now.

The question of this thread is not "what did you know about G" but "what do you know about the new changes?" and most important: How to get around them.

 

[andwrig]

Thanks for the great feedback guys. This complicated review integrity policy along with the implementation of Google+ (which I still can't figure out) serves as a real head scratcher...

 

[JamesKovacs]

Ok but this is old news, we knew that.

However things seem to be working fine until now.

The question of this thread is not "what did you know about G" but "what do you know about the new changes?" and most important: How to get around them.

Sorry Yago, but I was stating what some of the changes were. Google was previously doing this by a combination of algorithm and manual check, but changed the algorithm to do this more effectively. Remember, these reviews MAY come back once they are verified (this can be done by consumer using gmail account or posting other reviews locally). Also, the new algorithm is looking for sentiment that could mention things like <names>, or <specific events>. Also, (this is unverified) but it looks like they are trying to determine proximity to dealer being reviewed. If the proximity is not local, this could flag as well. Remember that perfect scores all of the time probably brings your reviews under a microscope. Google has been collecting review data for years and they have built the algorithm to look for the "too good to be true" reviews.

My recommendation to my dealers is to stay the course and collect honest feedback, and not good reviews. Don't cheat the system, and don't ask for a perfect score. Reply swiftly to any review not perfect.

The bottom line is that some dealers were/are cheating the system and it has caused Google to potentially penalize honest dealers.

I have been on a roadshow with Google for the past several weeks and this has been the hottest topic that dealers want to discuss.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Sorry Yago, but I was stating what some of the changes were. Google was previously doing this by a combination of algorithm and manual check, but changed the algorithm to do this more effectively. Remember, these reviews MAY come back once they are verified (this can be done by consumer using gmail account or posting other reviews locally). Also, the new algorithm is looking for sentiment that could mention things like <names>, or <specific events>. Also, (this is unverified) but it looks like they are trying to determine proximity to dealer being reviewed. If the proximity is not local, this could flag as well. Remember that perfect scores all of the time probably brings your reviews under a microscope. Google has been collecting review data for years and they have built the algorithm to look for the "too good to be true" reviews.

My recommendation to my dealers is to stay the course and collect honest feedback, and not good reviews. Don't cheat the system, and don't ask for a perfect score. Reply swiftly to any review not perfect.

The bottom line is that some dealers were/are cheating the system and it has caused Google to potentially penalize honest dealers.

I have been on a roadshow with Google for the past several weeks and this has been the hottest topic that dealers want to discuss.

Sound advice James.

We ask everybody to review their sales and service experience. No matter. This is done using a portion of the Prime service by Dominion. The Google reviews we have obtained at each of the dealers are from customers that use and have provided their gmail email address as their preferred email for communication. Prime recognizes the customers with gmail accounts and dynamically links them to the Google+ review page when asking for a review.

My Nissan dealer is sitting on 64 reviews at the moment, at which none have been removed or filtered.

Each dealer has a near infinite amount of obtainable reviews - if your asking each and every customer to provide feedback. Have a game plane to get reviews on the top review sites that have the most impact on your dealer. Scope out some different service that not only allow you to manage your reviews but can help you obtain reviews as well.

Naturally grow your reviews - good and bad. Take each for what they are worth. Learn something from each review - good or bad.

We've been preaching the importance of reviews for over 5 years now here on DealerRefresh. If you've had a game plain 5 years ago, chances are you're sitting in a good position at this point and having a few reviews filtered out isn't having much if any impact on your review count.

 

[Kelly Wilson]

Good News: I received my PIN from google this morning and now my G+ account is officially merged with my Places page!
Bad News: Every response to every review is gone!
At least I can replace the pictures from my Places page that vanished and I only lost 2 reviews.

My question: Should I RE - Respond to the reviews? The old ones, the bad ones, the good ones, pick a few newer ones and move on?

 

[yagoparamo]

Sorry Yago, but I was stating what some of the changes were. Google was previously doing this by a combination of algorithm and manual check, but changed the algorithm to do this more effectively. Remember, these reviews MAY come back once they are verified (this can be done by consumer using gmail account or posting other reviews locally). Also, the new algorithm is looking for sentiment that could mention things like <names>, or <specific events>. Also, (this is unverified) but it looks like they are trying to determine proximity to dealer being reviewed. If the proximity is not local, this could flag as well. Remember that perfect scores all of the time probably brings your reviews under a microscope. Google has been collecting review data for years and they have built the algorithm to look for the "too good to be true" reviews.

My recommendation to my dealers is to stay the course and collect honest feedback, and not good reviews. Don't cheat the system, and don't ask for a perfect score. Reply swiftly to any review not perfect.

The bottom line is that some dealers were/are cheating the system and it has caused Google to potentially penalize honest dealers.

I have been on a roadshow with Google for the past several weeks and this has been the hottest topic that dealers want to discuss.

James,

Right or wrong, the best advice so far!

 

[paulray]

If you are using one, make sure you are using a legitimate reputation management company. We email our customers directly and ask for both the good and bad. We never ask for it here at the dealership and we never try to cheat the system. We were able to keep the majority of our reviews during the switch. But many of our competitors lost most of the good reviews and one was even black listed from places/local altogether. A number of them had people reviewing their dealership that were also reviewing other dealerships on the same day claiming they bought a new car from each of them, they were also reviewing the same furniture stores and service shops. One such "reputation management" company came to pitch it to us and guaranteed we would get positive reviews. I told them we are the only ones that can guarantee satisfied customers. I don't know if my competitors knew what was going on but it never pays to game google.

 

[yagoparamo]

If you are using one, make sure you are using a legitimate reputation management company. We email our customers directly and ask for both the good and bad. We never ask for it here at the dealership and we never try to cheat the system. We were able to keep the majority of our reviews during the switch. But many of our competitors lost most of the good reviews and one was even black listed from places/local altogether. A number of them had people reviewing their dealership that were also reviewing other dealerships on the same day claiming they bought a new car from each of them, they were also reviewing the same furniture stores and service shops. One such "reputation management" company came to pitch it to us and guaranteed we would get positive reviews. I told them we are the only ones that can guarantee satisfied customers. I don't know if my competitors knew what was going on but it never pays to game google.

Paul,

Usually it never pays to game anything. But we are talking about a different issue here and people keep bringing up that they are "the good guys".

There are people cheating the system. That will never change. Those people are in fact working right now on how to game the system again and there are dealers that will use their services.

Those dealers that use those services I would label as unaware rather than bad people. They just don't know what the heck is going on, technology went on top of their heads, and the are just trying to find a quick fix so they hire the review mercenaries. Good for them, they got their quick fix and now it is broken again. In the end, they got what they pay for (short term solution) and it plays better for people with more knowledge (no better people or good people).

The problem here is that Google used to allow you as a business to ask your customers for a review right at the dealership and post it online. They had a few hicks like the account had to be used prior and after, etc. But there was no policy against it nor it was penalized. While a hot topic with many opinions forth and against, asking your customers for reviews at the time of sale was allowed.

We are trying to figure out what the new rules are, not whether a dealer is a "good guy" for following certain process or a bad dealer for following a different one.

 

[paulray]

Usually it never pays to game anything. But we are talking about a different issue here and people keep bringing up that they are "the good guys".

I see what you are saying. I apologize if my post came across sounding like I was implying that any of the dealers here would be trying to game Google or were duped by one of these companies. It was merely what I had observed in my area and for the sake of those who stumble on this topic. For a while it seemed like every other vendor had a Reputation Management program they would pitch, but not all are created equal.
I actually do understand why Google would not allow reviews from the same IP and would filter them out, far too much abuse was going on and Google reviews got to the point you couldn't trust them at all. We hired sales people from some of our local competitors and they would talk about the previous dealer giving extra incentives to customer for reviews on the spot, they would hand out tablets to the sales staff and spiff them to write reviews while they were waiting for ups. So Google had to do something to make the reviews legit and repair their own reputation. It’s a shame it has affected dealers that were playing by the rules and got burned because of the practices of those who were not. I am just not sure how Google would be able to tell the difference though.

 

[Agrrip]

I guess my situation is a little different. Our social media company had set up a Google + account and a Google Places account (not sure why, it happened before I was hired). When Google merged to G+L they merged the two accounts together. After the merge, we lost the ability to reply to reviews and we lost all of our positive reviews.

It is, and has always been our dealership'(s) policy that we do not collect any reviews on-site and we have never used a reputation management company. In our eyes, we followed the TOU very closely.

Since we pay a LOT in adwords, I reached out to the adwords team to see if they could help. They told me that the two accounts (Plus and Local) created a conflict and when they merged, they threw out everything that was not duplicated between the two and removed our good reviews due to the duplication of data.

The adwords team said that they are going to try to get our reviews back...but also told me not to hold my breath as they have very little control over manually fixing an account.

Their suggestion to me was to delete one of the duplicate accounts and hope and pray that the algorithm adds the reviews back.

I should point out that we do have a review link on our website that directs people to leave reviews for us at a number of sites... See This Link. I wonder if Google is flagging our leads because the referral source on the bulk of our leads is from our site...we send a thank you card/email with every sale and from service with that link provided...