Have you heard about Review Bombing before? Did you notice a sudden outburst of bad Reviews on your Google My Business account that are not relevant? Google Tackle Review Bombing Maps is a place where users visit to find direction, search for businesses, find reviews and ratings for places or businesses. However, in this fickle world, negative and fake reviews are ruining the platform’s actual concept. As per Google, it receives millions of fraud and inappropriate reviews on Maps.
Small businesses are affected primarily by negative reviews, and it is getting out of their hands to tackle this issue. Google Maps was made with the sole purpose of making the lives of individuals easier. It is designed to get a proper review of a place and search for the destinations to make your travel easier. Users upload photos, videos, and content to provide a detailed review about a place or Business.
You cannot predict who can be your biggest enemy, and it can be your neighbor, batchmates, old colleagues, business rivals, etc. This is the biggest drawback of the online marketplace. Here everyone can present their views about your products or services, and you cannot control them. But it becomes a significant concern for businesses as anyone can use the platform for degrading their position in the market.
This has created a challenge for Google Tackle Review Bombing to filter out legitimate reviews from the long list of fake or irrelevant reviews. Google takes several steps to create a safe environment for both users and businesses to get the best reviews. For this, it uses both machine learning and physical workforce to get rid of the fake or fraudulent content from Maps. In this detailed guide, we will help you understand the several ways Google uses to protect businesses from fraud or misleading reviews.
Strict content policy to protect fake or fraudulent activities
Google prepares a strict content policy to protect businesses from review bombing. There are many ways users can misuse the platform for their benefit. The policy safeguards offensive or irrelevant comments away from Google by keeping real-world experiences in mind. The teams then use this policy to filter out content that does not fulfill the policy’s criteria. It is used as a training guide for the machine learning algorithms and operators to identify policy-violating content on the Maps.
Setting up a machine learning algorithm
As per Google, a large amount of fraud and irrelevant reviews are wiped out with the help of their automated sources before anyone sees it. Google uses machine learning algorithms to help fake and fraudulent activities off of Google at a tremendous rate. It receives a large volume of content every day, and machines act as their best protectors. Machines are best to identify patterns and operate at a mass level. They look for the content from several angles to find whether they comply with the policies or not, such as:
- Identify the account from which they posted the content. The operators review whether the Google account is new or old, have a profile picture, and have a history of suspicious behavior.
- The content of the Review. Does the Review contain anything offensive or irrelevant?
- Review whether the account has posted reviews in abundance in a short time.
Trained operators for evaluating content manually
As we all know that machines are not fully capable of identifying errors and fraudulent activities, there is always a need for human efforts. There are many ways through which automated sources cannot identify review bombing. For example, many words used in derogatory ways are not offensive in fundamental ways. Sometimes it becomes difficult to track offensive language by machines. That is why a team of human operators is used to track the unusual behavior on the platform and protect the businesses from degrading their reputation. Their team manually investigates the reviews to protect the platform from all kinds of irrelevant and fraudulent activities such as:
- Evaluating each Review that looks suspicious and researching the history of the account from which it is posted.
- Identify any derogatory language used in the comment proceeding the review process.
- Check the number of times a review is posted from one account and check the accountholder’s activities.
How Businesses combat negative reviews on Google Maps?
Google takes several steps to keep its users happy by protecting their rights. If you have an account on Google My Business and doubt receiving fraudulent reviews, you have the option to report/flag the Review. Google allows businesses to report/flag user-generated content in simple steps. The good part is that you don’t need to have any technical knowledge, and it can be done quickly using simple steps, and the rest will be taken care of by their operators.
Get on a Call with Google specialists.
Unlike other companies like Facebook, Google Tackle Review Bombing greatly emphasizes telephonic calls for issues, and it allows its users to contact them directly whenever needed. However, we suggest you be very patient while talking to their specialist as they take up a lot of time reviewing your issue. Also, we would inform you that it is not essential that they will remove the reviews quickly after that. You can quickly contact the specialists using the contact form to report your issue, and the specialist will then review your report and provide the results after a proper investigation.
Respond to the Review
Dealing with Google Tackle Review Bombing on your account is a big headache to businesses nowadays. Even though it offers excellent chances to business owners to flag their issues, it takes a lot of time to get the job done. For this, we would never suggest you sit back and wait for the response from Google. Also, you don’t have the option to remove them manually. The best thing you can do in-between is to respond to those negative reviews that you think as fishy. You can reply to those reviews in polite ways and hint that their content is under Review by Google as it doesn’t sound relevant and could be a cyber-attack. However, it would still impact your overall rating on Maps. So, it is a must to report the Review for better results.
Taking actions against Suspicious or Fraudulent Reviews
There are many ways through which Google Tackle Review Bombing identifies and analyzes the Review Bombing on Google Maps. We have explained each effort Google takes to keep the platform a trusted and reliable place for the users. With the help of their team and automated sources, they can deal with the harmful content at such a mass level. After a thorough analysis of destructive content on the Maps, they take several actions to remove the destructive content from the platform, suspend fraudsters’ accounts, and ban illegitimate users for protecting businesses and users from misinformation and cyber threats.
It has removed millions of reviews from the platform that are trying to attack small Businesses using illegitimate methods. As more people turn towards using Google maps for their day-to-day activities, it has become a responsibility to make it reliable. Their job is not done after your hit the “post” button on the Review. Their work begins after the Review is posted to protect the interests of both users and businesses. For more information on different steps taken by Google to protect your interests, you can keep reading blogs on Webstealer.