This comes as absolutely no surprise to me, not even a little bit, that some companies are being investigated for “fake reviews”. The BBC reports here that Just Eat, Autotrader and more are being looked at by the CMA for essentially soliciting fake reviews.
Big shock… NOT!
Years ago, I sussed this and wrote about it on UK Whitegoods as the emails, calls and texts asking for your thoughts on anything from “how was our toilets” to, “how was your car breakdown”, “rate your repair” and more started to flood everyone’s inboxes.
Then there was the slight problem of Trustpilot and so on not being representative (only in my opinion, before someone threatens legal action again) unless you paid them and, routed all your review traffic to them or, the bulk of it anyway.
And, if you didn’t pay them and route traffic there to get some decent reviews, all you got was the problem people who took the time and made the effort to persecute you with a poor review.
The reviews thing is all a bit unhinged but I have been asked, why do they do it?
Good question, glad you asked.
Trust
One word. That’s the reason.
Ask any marketer, especially online SEO people, and they’ll all tell you that Google sees lots of reviews (especially mostly good ones) as an indicator of trust and so, puts you above others that don’t have that.
Since most these days rely on Google to get business and, you can game the reviews….
Yeah, not rocket science to work out what will happen next is it?
That “trust” leads to revenue, traffic and more for a lot of companies and so, they all do your head in looking for a review and some, as noted by the BBC, will “bribe” people to leave a five-star one in a bid to further game the system.
Google rewards you in SEO terms and bumps you up if you’ve got good reviews. So people will try to scam that, pure and simple.
All the more for new businesses and brands as they struggle to be seen online with no history or reviews to bump them up the Google pile.
Trusting Trust Signals
Here’s the thing though, if reviews are being manipulated or just downright falsified then why does Google seem to continue with using these as a mark of how good or bad a company is?
Who knows and I can tell you, sure as eggs is eggs, Google won’t tell you, me or anyone else why. It’s Google, they don’t do that.
End users still trust reviews, I generally don’t, I might skim some but you will often see a number that look a bit shady because, they’re probably a bit shady.
Recently, there was a report that one business had left the prompt on it to ChatGPT or whatever to “create a five-star review with a glowing recommendation for XXXX business and products”.
I mean, seriously, if you’re gonna falsify anything at least have the gumption to make it not so obvious.
This is a problem, though, the internet is now awash with AI Slop, as it’s called (garbage spat out by LLMs more accurately) and one big target for that is, of course, reviews. Why bother to write scores of reviews yourself when you can get an LLM to do it for you.
Scammers are plumbing new depths of laziness.
And then there are the ones they fight to get removed, the bad reviews.
So you can’t entirely trust many of the platforms, you can’t trust many of the ones you can see and, you don’t know how many have been removed you can’t see.
I then go back to wondering, why does Google trust this stuff?
Nuanced Reviews
I work in the service industry, it’s not always easy because when people have a thing that’s busted, they didn’t want to be busted and perhaps have to pay to get it fixed in addition to the hassle, they’re not in a happy place.
That’s the nice way of saying, they’re hacked off before they even call or email you.
Not really at you, I get that, but service people are very often the punching bag for people’s frustrations because you’re the person they can reach and moan at, or shout at.
The chances of a good review, slim. Sure, there are some and there are people that do understand how things work and that you’re doing the best you can to fix the problem they have but, many will punish you for a problem not of your making.
Parts out of stock, delays, not covered by warranty and so on.. bad review.
So when I see service companies with banging reviews that say they’re wondrous, I’m suspicious right away as that doesn’t track with the reality I live in.
All the more so when it’s one of those national service companies that many of us in the industry know, ain’t that good.
Legislation
For reviews? After I finish chuckling…
There apparently is some, but enforcing it is a whole other ball game, and without enforcement, it may as well not exist. This is perhaps the second time I’ve even seen it mentioned in the media.
Review platforms, so far as I can see, are largely unregulated or monitored.
But with reportedly 50% or more of reviews out there being fake, this is a problem.
And it’s not just the government that should do something about it, Google should as well.
The BBC and CMA are right, this affects how billions of pounds are spent in the UK, trillions globally and for so much of it to be a free-for-all really isn’t acceptable.