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@Smileworks_Liverpool said in Beware of Fishy 4-Star Reviews:

Haha lol.  My business does 40k Net Profit a month and Starbucks is still too expensive!
But seriously, I have had loads of fake reviews, mainly from our competitors but have noticed some random ones creeping in.  Not patients at the practice but instead very generic.  It reminds me of the webform spam which started off as porn / viagra and then became more insidious so as to get past my gatekeepers or get a click or response from the newer receptionists at the practice.  They have started saying nice things like "great article, I loved reading this, can I have an appointment please for whitening".  The girls on front of house always respond to them because that's how they are trained and they are too busy usually to spot the email address that's from a bangladeshi pharmacy (very common one) or some sort of mens health company.
I try to stop them but al my actual enquiries end up in the trash.  It's a nightmare.  But spammers are adapting.  They are not ever going away. The more tech we use to screen them the smarter they get.
I have had lots of success getting google to remove reviews though.  It's not as hard as everyone says if you have the data and stats and evidence for Google.

Haha, the struggle is real! It's unfortunate to hear about the challenges you're facing with fake reviews. It's indeed a tricky landscape, and it's disheartening when genuine inquiries get caught in the crossfire. Adaptability is key, and it's impressive that you've had success in getting Google to remove reviews. It's a constant battle, but with vigilance and the right approach, we can navigate through it.

Thank you for sharing this valuable insight! It's essential for us, as local business marketers, to stay vigilant in monitoring our Google My Business reviews. The emergence of 4-star review attacks is indeed concerning, as it can be easily overlooked while gradually impacting a brand's reputation.

Jason Brown's post sheds light on this issue, and I appreciate the recommendation to read it. It's crucial to be proactive and report such occurrences to experts like Jason, who can track and possibly address this practice with Google. Maintaining the integrity of online reviews is crucial for both businesses and consumers, and your post serves as a helpful reminder to stay alert.

This seems to be a major problem that I don't see a lot of people talking about. I can only find the article Miriam Ellis stated in the original posts (http://reviewfraud.org/4-star-negative-review-attacks/). There is a growing discussion on Google's GMB community forum with business owners trying to get these fake review removed but not much more.

The article linked above stated that "Over two million three seventy-eight thousand ratings have been left by these 27 profiles" and the number continues to grow.

To me, this seems like a very serious issue that has the potential to damage Google's integrity tremendously. Reviews are at the core of local search and are widely trusted by Google users. If Google doesn't figure out a way to stop this I would assume that people would lose trust in ratings and become obsolete to Google users. I would also assume that this would negatively impact relationships with business owners. Continuing to report fake reviews to Google one at a time to get them removed seems like a ridiculas task for business owners.

Is there something I'm missing?

Please help me understand.

Haha lol.  My business does 40k Net Profit a month and Starbucks is still too expensive!

But seriously, I have had loads of fake reviews, mainly from our competitors but have noticed some random ones creeping in.  Not patients at the practice but instead very generic.  It reminds me of the webform spam which started off as porn / viagra and then became more insidious so as to get past my gatekeepers or get a click or response from the newer receptionists at the practice.  They have started saying nice things like "great article, I loved reading this, can I have an appointment please for whitening".  The girls on front of house always respond to them because that's how they are trained and they are too busy usually to spot the email address that's from a bangladeshi pharmacy (very common one) or some sort of mens health company.

I try to stop them but al my actual enquiries end up in the trash.  It's a nightmare.  But spammers are adapting.  They are not ever going away. The more tech we use to screen them the smarter they get.

I have had lots of success getting google to remove reviews though.  It's not as hard as everyone says if you have the data and stats and evidence for Google.

Thanks Mariam Ellis

Our services needs a lot of reviews tho. Good reviews it will help bring in new customers, Like Tim holmes said "it is about time that all review site had to partake in a verifiable way of getting all reviews." I think this will help on a long run

Thank you so much for this, I have experienced this with one of my clients, its a real pain for the honest person just trying to run a business. We rely so much on SERP to bring in business and when something like this has the potential to affect it is most frustrating.

An interesting concept which I do agree is most likely not commonly monitored. We have purposely tried move to verified review partners which only accept reviews from genuine customers of our service, but that is not to say that open review sites cannot still be plagued by negative fake reviews or in this case good fake reviews. Surely it is about time that all review site had to partake in a verifiable way of getting all reviews.

I've seen this happen on other platforms like Facebook a long time ago as well. I enabled reviews for a client and saw around 80 - 100 reviews and all of them were a 4-star rating. At the time I knew it was fishy. I reached out to all the people leaving the reviews but most of the profiles were new and empty and never responded. I didn't think too much of it because in essence having a score between 4 - 5 is still good. I also thought that when the 1-star review come as they always do, that the higher score with a lot of weight would keep the actual score high for a longer period of time before dipping below 4.

Long story short, the (fake) reviews went from 4 down to 3 and after an extended period of time, it went from 3 - 2 etc. We had to eventually disable reviews but I've seen that strategy apply to other sites as well. Trustpilot, WOT and even on review sites.

Thanks Miriam,

I got one of these recently, but I think a 4.8 looks more realistic than a 5.0 so I don't mind. Do you think they're doing it just to get Google points? The person who wrote mine is clearly not a client or prospect. She wrote a review about Starbucks being too expensive, so she certainly isn't going to be hiring a marketing consultant.