I have two jobs. A disgruntled person from one job thought it was within his right to post lies and negative things on my other, more sensitive to such things, places page. Other than doing the same to him (which I would prefer not stoop), my only recorse is to flag the review in hopes that google eventually removes it. Judging by the hundred’s of posts I’ve read in the google help pages I’d be one of the lucky ones if they remove the review. Reading on the web there are hundreds of people screaming to whomever will listen begging google (and like) to remove the hate reviews. Most coming from fired emplyees or just crazy f**cks (as in my case). This is a very large problem for people that get all their business from the web. Google (and like) have a duty to respond to such false claims in a timely manner. Not doing so is in a sense aiding and abetting this libel content from these crazy people. Something needs to change as the social enviroment continues to evolve in favor of the evil will of others to defamate the character of others. Of course I am seeking legal reattribute, but I am one of the small few that would do so and who knows how long that will take to get satisfaction.
Was there a question in there or did you just want to vent?
Just venting. But if anyone had some useful advise I’d be grateful.
Part of having an open system is the reality that what’s posted is not always the same as the content. Google does not, and should not, have liability over this… the costs to do so would be illogical and would also impact a small forum or startup to the point of stifling the growth of the web. You say the review is lies… but Google has nearly no way to validate that unless you do the homework and show them the evidence. The same is true of fake good reviews and that’s why sites are moving away from anonymous to users, or real names [facebook] or friends because people know it’s not all on the up and up.
Lies are bad. Negative is what it is. You can fight the first, you can’t stop the second, so build to outweigh it.
Even if you get this particular post removed for a lie, the customer can still come back and post a negative, and entirely legitimate, review. The war is not getting rid of the bad [although reporting something you can prove to be false is very logical]but rather focusing on building the good reputation for your brand. Get more reviews from customers and most will be positive.
Have to agree with the advice that you should just look to get more reviews in general. For online reputation companies, their primary strategy is to simply drown out the bad with the good, so to speak. You can’t control when someone decides to post a lie/bad review, but you can motivate people to post positive ones.
You’re best bet is to contact clients that you have serviced in the past and ask that they post a review. In the long run, one bad review will mean nothing to tons of good ones.
True to Ted S post, since most business online or not, also encounters those kind of problem. People making bad rumors about restaurants because they were not treated well during their “first impression” visits or a threat to the business competition.
They do this in any kind of avenue including paid newspapers and sometimes libelous claim at famous media. So applying what businessmen do with their business to get rid of those common predicaments, successful online businesses sure also find their own “secret” recipe to avoid those kind of problems or even single them out while they’re just a tiny tumor.
In our website, we use our social media accounts (Facebook and Twitter) to gain patrons and fans so that we have them encouraged to provide us positives while winning their heart to maybe DEFEND us from any future bad/negative feedback from other customers.
There really isn’t a way to force Google to hurry up and remove it, the only thing you can try to do is burry it and hope to get more good reviews to outway the bad. Either that or report the url to several spam queryes and that will lower the reputation of the negative review, that could out weight its negative effects.
Best bet is to get more positive reviews though.
I would like to ask some of my frequent clients to post reviews for my business, however many of them either do not have Google accounts or have not posted any reviews before. I’m concerned that Google will flag these reviews as fake (the way Yelp does) if the user accounts seem to be created to give the review, or the user only has one review. Can anyone let me know if this is a valid concern? I don’t want to ask my clients to go out of their way to review my business only to have their time wasted and the review removed. Thank you!