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Hi Dmitrii,

Good conversation going on this thread. I will just add, there are some industries where reviews truly aren't prevalent. In such cases, it can help to show the client their competitors' lack of reviews - conclusion being that everyone is in the same boat. Sometimes, however, you find a competitor who is spamming Google with fake reviews, and that looks even stranger! How many people, for example, write reviews about how they love how Mike the bail bondsman got them out of jail because he's the best bails bondsman in the world?

I'm just not a fan of anonymous reviews. Most credible review platforms don't allow them. If the nature of the business is so sensitive that customers aren't comfortable leaving third-party reviews, stick to what you can publish on your own website and focus on forms of marketing customers are comfortable with. Industries are different, and sometimes, we have to respect those differences and look beyond generalizations in marketing so that we're doing what really works for brands and their clients.

It seems likely that Google are just, in general taking a harsher stance against anonymous reviews (which I guess are much easier to fake): https://moz.com/blog/lost-anonymous-google-reviews

Your best port of call would be to directly contact other Google-compatible review platforms (like Trust Pilot) and see whether this aggressive stance by Google also extended to external (3rd party) review aggregators.

I'd actually be extremely interested to see what they would say. I might even email them myself...

Had a lot of trouble with this one for a client who is pioneering a surgical treatment, but it's for a condition that is not talked about socially (people with the condition feel it makes them seem "gross" or "disgusting"). As such, even when the patients are all better, they don't even want anyone to know what they had in the first place. Assuredly they don't want their name and picture alongside a testimonial.

Funnily enough, 6-8 people were so grateful to be quickly and silently rid of their affliction that they were ok to have their testimonials placed with their name and picture. One of the business founders, whom actually created the business (dedicated to one sole product / procedure) - became one of its first faces. He was completely unashamed about all of that. Once we secured 2-3 others who would also show face, suddenly other people found it easier to be persuaded. No one wants to be the 'first one' to do this, it makes them feel like the 'face' of whatever condition is being treated (or in the case of cosmetic surgery, it makes people feel like 'the face of ugly').

We included a mixture of testimonials. We spread out the very legitimate looking ones (though in actual fact, all testimonials were equally legitimate) amongst the others to inspire confidence. For those who didn't want to show their face and full name, we asked if showing their forename only would be acceptable and then found a relevant image for the review. One guy said he was so glad to be able to get back to playing golf, so we used a nice, glossy image of a golf club and some golf balls. We figured that, in the instance we could not persuade people to show their face (and thus legitimise the review), we'd maintain the site's design with other images which reached out to people on other levels. Ok so they may not inspire as much trust, but instead they remind people of the things they want to get back to (sort of like micro-moments in avatar slots)

I'm sure there are review suppliers which Google trusts which allow reviews to be left anonymously. I haven't looked into it, but I'd find ways to combine those with other design features that push the product or procedure in some way. It won't be perfect but it might avoid you having to produce your own review engine, which Google may or may not decide to trust