In mid December, Google quietly rolled out an upgrade to the customer reviews filtering algorithm. It was intended to take out a lot of review spamming that has been going on. Around the same time, Google also quietly removed the old Google My Business Reviews Policy page, making much of the reviews guidelines part of […]
Reviews
Google extends Review Notifications
During the 3rd week of June, 2017, Google quietly extended the review notifications for listings from just the primary owner, to any user on the listing with review notifications enabled. This has been a much requested feature, and we’re delighted it has rolled out. Exceptions As with every rule, there are the seemingly necessary exceptions: […]
If even God can’t get it right…
Customer reviews – they make some go weak at the knees. The knee-knocking usually comes from two schools of thought: Thinking it’s too hard. Done right, it becomes part of your marketing and customer service and is simple. That’s a discussion for another post. Fear of negative reviews. Let’s tackle the last one. First question […]
Customer Reviews disappearing? You’re not alone…
UPDATES: Late 2019 – a Local Guide reported having lost many reviews and contributions to businesses due to their individual data retention settings. This indicates businesses lost the reviews and contributions as well. Mid 2019 – Google tightened their review filters and they seemed to be a bit zealous. The filters have since been relaxed. […]
New Review Filters for Google Maps
Update: May 2017 When the review filters first came out, they were in whole numbers – 4.0, 3.0, etc. In May 2017, Google introduced half-star increments.note: Images in this article have not been updated to reflect the change. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could cut down the options and filter businesses in the pack based […]
Are Anonymous Online Reviewers in Danger?
Update: In mid 2018, Google removed tens if not hundreds of thousands of anonymous reviews from listings. These were largely been from Google reviewers whose accounts had been deleted or never had Google accounts associated with them. The name of the reviewer was normally “A Google User” From that point forward if a user has […]
How some (bad) businesses angle for good reviews
Consumer reviews are important for your local business, but you can take it too far. This 4 min vid shows how some companies have taken reviews too seriously, and gone foul. Warning: 30 second ad first. So that’s the US, what about Australia? In Australia sadly I see businesses getting fake reviews every day, so […]
Customer reviews under review
As local businesses become more aware of how important reviews are for the future of their business, sites like Yelp, Google, TrueLocal and womo become a key part of their marketing mix. For all the good those sites do, there’s always someone who tries to game a system. And sadly, that happens on both sides […]
Get ready for Zagat, Melbourne
Never heard of Zagat? Don’t sweat, it is relatively new to Australia. So new in fact, the first ever voting period for Sydney restaurants and Sydney attractions only launched on May 21, 2012. So what is Zagat? Zagat is an online review site which combines the opinions of your customers to provide an overall profile […]