How to Deal With the Rising Online Fake Reviews Problem?

Whether buyers or sellers, reviews matter a big deal for both. That stands true even more so with the holiday season approaching. Shoppers will now be turning to online reviews to make more informed purchase decisions regarding which clothes, electronic items, home furniture, or toys they should buy and from which brands. 

But with the new rising online problem, many buyers are likely going to come across bogus and invalid reviews unknowingly. Fake Reviews are becoming an increasing problem in the digital world, and they literally exist across all notable platforms, so now it’s really just the question of their extent. 

This blog addresses this emerging problem, what it puts at stake, different types of fake reviews, how you can identify and get them removed from your profile. Let’s dive in!

The Extent of the Problem

Popular review sites, including Google, Amazon, Yelp, and Facebook, implement different methods for content moderation and review fraud. Among all these influential platforms, probably Yelp has been the most aggressive one when it comes to oppressing review fraud. However, other sites such as Google and Amazon often say that they are, too, focusing on solving this problem, just with varying success intensity. 

Review fraud is increasingly becoming a much greater problem on Amazon in particular. According to several studies performed by trustworthy sources, it has been determined that most reviews in specific product categories are fraudulent and bogus on Amazon. For instance, as per one of the studies, most of the reviews on Amazon for Bluetooth devices in the Electronics category and products in the Beauty category are fake. 

However, the company disapproves of this data and argues that it is actively tackling the problem. Meanwhile, review fraud is also a significant problem on Google, where heaps of Local Guide profiles are in reality managed by “review farms.”

Review fraud has somewhat become a cat and rat game, in which dubious but more highly advanced fraudsters try to be a step ahead of platform algorithms. The reasons why review fraud is multiplying is pretty self-evident. Reviews influence the rankings on sites like Google and Amazon, and a vast majority of buyers turn to them in order to make more informed buying decisions. 

Nevertheless, more and more shoppers are beginning to catch fake reviews online. According to a survey conducted last year, most of the participants admitted reading at least one fake review (it was “one” because most buyers don’t identify fake reviews usually). And this is the primary reason why buyers have started looking through various review websites before they make a buying decision, as a sort of a shield against review fraud. 

Different Types of Online Fake Reviews

Most often, we talk about review fraud as a static phenomenon even though there are an array and different categories of illegitimate reviews:

• A business owner who produces fake reviews directly or indirectly for their own business 
• Employees who give positive reviews for their company or bosses, and ex-employees who leave vengeful reviews for their former organization
• Buyers who lie or falsify a poor customer experience in order to receive a refund or some other sort of reimbursement
• Family, friends, or rivals who give good or bad reviews on behalf of a company
• Companies that simply buy reviews or provide some kind of trade-off in exchange for the positive reviews
• Global dealers who sell positive as well as negative reviews to businesses worldwide

A lot of fake review merchants function offshore in different countries around the world. However, according to research, the most common type of review fraud is committed by the business owners themselves who use a fake account to write good reviews about their own company or bad reviews of their competitors. 

Dealing with fake reviews is undoubtedly a disastrous idea for plenty of reasons, including getting your business listing suspended or blacklisted by the platforms. However, among the plethora of reasons, consumer trust perhaps continues to be the most prominent reason why you must steer clear of trying to play the system. We think this goes without saying, but fake reviews can result in a loss of consumer trust in the company or seller, which is the last thing you’d want for your business. Most buyers will choose not to purchase from a seller or brand if they suspect fake reviews. 

In addition to this, platforms calling your business out, especially Yelp, can be bitter as well. Yelp’s consumer alerts (warning messages popping up in the reviews section) can stay the business’s profile for several months based on the infringement. Now that can be a coup de grace for a local business.

Identifying and Removing Fake Reviews

Having discussed all the harsh repercussions a business can face if they get involved in review fraud, this also raises another primary concern. Let’s assume a business isn’t creating fake reviews for themselves; instead, their competitors are doing it to ruin their reputation and credibility; then what? They will still face the consequences of something they didn’t do! This is why it is extremely crucial to continually monitor your reviews and look out for the fake ones. But easier said than done – identifying and removing fake reviews can be tricky. 

However, several advanced reputation management tools can help recognize fake reviews or even help track incoming fake reviews in real-time for quicker detection.

But when it comes to recognizing fake reviews manually, that’s where the real challenge kicks in. Still, if you choose to go with manual detection, there are several things that you can watch out for, such as reviewers not existing in the current customer database, profiles or names that appear bogus, geographically dispersed reviews, citations that suggest that the review is directed at the wrong company, reviews that seem generic or does not include much details, rating stars without any comment (on Google in particular), and so on. There are a lot of other indications too. 

Every platform, including Google, Amazon, Facebook, Yelp, etc., has a slightly different policy for addressing suspicious reviews and requesting their removal. 

However, keep in mind that following their process might not always work too. Like especially on Google, the review or reviews at issue must infringe one of its content guidelines, including “spam and fake content.” Moreover, Google will also remove reviews in the following cases:

• It is written by a non-customer.
• It is aimed at the wrong business.
• It is not based on a real customer experience, such as political opposition to the business.

Therefore, the best thing to do in such cases is to publicly reply to the review and specify the misunderstanding or error (like the wrong business address indicating the review is directed at the wrong company) without sentiments. Likewise, if you notice a competitor writing you a bad review, politely specify that you don’t remember them as your customer. After that, find and flag that review as wrong in the GMB dashboard. Local SEO professionals advise businesses to notify Google on Twitter @GoogleMyBiz. 

In the best-case scenario, Google will take a few days to remove the review(s) if they agree that it was wrong. However, in some cases, it may take a bit longer, like 15-20 days. 

Wrap Up

Online reputation is not built in a day, and it takes years to establish your business as a credible entity. Reviews are not about rankings only. They are helpful to companies in terms of enhancing their products, services, or business operations. Moreover, brands that genuinely listen to their consumers and care about their opinions will eventually have better customer loyalty, and more referrals in the long run. Trying to play the system by purchasing or creating fake reviews won’t do you any good. 

If a business has an established active review management system and constant incoming reviews, any unusual review fraud won’t have any significant impact on the business. And any evidently fraudulent reviews should be quickly recognized and consequently removed.