Fake Google Reviews: #IF YOU CANNOT PROVE, YOU MUST REMOVE

It happens every day and frankly I am not sure why it's accepted. We have been the victim of a fake sabotage review recently. This came on the back of two clients moving to our PPC agency from a local competitor. The same day, the second company moved, we had our first review on Google. Possibly co-incidence.

It was a 1 star review from someone who we have never done business with or known. We have tracked the person down, they live locally and don't speak English well so have no clue what I am talking about when sending letters asking them to remove. It's quite possibly not even him, just someone taking his name.

The genius of the fake review is that their is no commentary and it's not a bot. It's a verified email address. So Google cannot or rather I should say - will not, do anything about it. The reason, their policy only extends to removing bot reviews and inflammatory wording. The obvious response to this is "Lets just get more positive reviews" and I get that. But why should we gloss over this? Why can't something be done? This comes down to a choice for Google and they choose to side with the reviewer. I believe that is wrong.

IF YOU CANNOT PROVE, YOU MUST REMOVE. I appreciate that Johnny Cochran and OJ are not the most suitable of source material but abstracting over the awful events, Johnny won his case based on a similar tagline that wriggled into minds.

So here are my views, rants and solutions. Bear in mind the context that as a PPC agency, we provide Google with lots of wealth selling THEIR products and services.

1 ) Eliminate the Source : You can go and buy these via searching on Google - think about that. Finding a service via Google to make Google reviews pointless. Does Google have the power to stop this? Yes.

2 ) Authentication:

I appreciate there are millions of reviews and it would take resource to do this. You would have to be one of the biggest and richest companies in the world to make this happen. Hell, it's probably second in difficulty to making a driverless car or some other Sci-fi shit.

At this point, Google cannot authenticate their own review process. Think about that. One of the richest companies in the world.

Could Google Authenticate? Absolutely - other review services do. Proof of contract/order. They only need to do this on dispute cases which might only be 5% of reviews. So manageable for Google. In our case - PPC - just look in our Adwords account which Google created and have access to!! They won't of course. I don't know why not. I go back to the point though that they are one of the richest companies in the world via PPC. Could they not spend $1bn on an authentication service and 15 international large call centers? Yes - of course they could. They could certainly make it harder than now.

3 ) Communication with it's business customers:

Whilst I am here......The richest company in the world barely has the ability to take inbound calls. Think about that. There are small companies ALL over the world taking calls every day, helping people. Receptionist directing calls with companies of only 10 staff and limited resource. Can I phone Google easily to complain? By jumping through hard to find hoops you can.

4 ) A better Reviews Policy:

 Googles Comment posting policy is as follows:

• 1 ) Don't spam or post fake reviews intended to boost or lower ratings.
• Don't post or link to content that is sexually explicit or contains profanity.
• Don't post or link to content that is abusive or hateful or threatens or harasses others.
• Don't post or or link to any file that contains viruses, corrupted files, "Trojan Horses," or any other contaminating or destructive features that may damage someone else's computer.
• Don't post any material that violates the copyrights or other intellectual property rights of others.
• 6 ) Don't impersonate any person, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity.

Note points 1 and 6....so why do they not help out with fake reviews? That is policy violation but they insist their policy doesnt cover it probably hiding behind the different between the word comment/review. 

Is this worth people getting together for legal advice on class actions to see what the validity is? Can companies prove that the big G don't do enough, are compliant in causing distress and financial harm to business owners and not upholding their policies which every one signs upto - it would probably hinge on comment v's review.

Please Google - do the decent thing and really listen to objections and act accordingly

 #If the reviewer CANT prove, you must remove.

Interested to hear peoples comments and thoughts.