Time For SMBs To Tackle – Or Be Tackled By – Online Reviews
So much of search focuses on being found. But being found doesn’t do much good unless you’re also chosen. The only thing worse than not being found is being found and rejected from consideration. There’s no doubt that online reviews play an increasingly central role in the consumer path to…
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Reputation Management Dilemma – The Review From Hell
This post recently showed up in the forums: Link to your local Google+ page Business name (as it is in your account): Bakersfield Funeral Home Business location: 3121 19th Street, Bakersfield, CA 93301, USA Business telephone: 661-871-8080 Business category: Funeral Home Website: www.bakersfieldfuneral.com An ex employee is trying to hurt the business after being fired for […]
6 Local Tips For Small Business SEO Success
We all know that a key component of any small business’ marketing strategy is to effectively position its brand in search engine results. But is it possible to dominate search results with content you control — or at least content you’ve influenced? The answer is yes. There are…
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Fake Reviews – Everyone is doing it, so it must be legal
I absolutely loved this thread at blackhatworld. The original poster asked: Hi, Does anybody know if it is illegal to sell fake online reviews? I have heard about companies getting fined for posting / buying fake reviews, but can the seller actually get in trouble? If so then why does Fiverr allow you to post […]
Reviews, SMBs & Google – Still Not Clear on the Concept
This story is so rich in the evolving complexity of reviews; the absurdly angry SMB, the frustrated poster and so rich a tale of service gone awry. A story of how decent service can become indecent service by the sort of reflexive behavior that is so common in the service industry. To say nothing of […]
Yelp Turns Up The Heat: 285 Consumer Alerts Issued Over Fake Reviews
It’s been almost a year and a half since Yelp began issuing Consumer Alerts when a business on its site has been caught trying to get fake reviews; but after a cautious start, that program appears to be turning up the heat. According to an interview with CEO Jeremy Stoppelman in The…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
Google Reviews – New Quirks
Last week, with the rollout of the Places Review Monitoring system, we started to see some quirks in review count difference between the monitoring dashboard and the + Page. Subsequently business owners, like Barbara Oliver, reported review count declines on their + Page and in the main search results. Barbara’s reviews went from 65 to […]
Google Intros the Mother of All SMB Review Monitoring Systems
Google has announced on the Google and Your Business blog today that they have rolled out what appears to be the mother of all review monitoring systems today. The system, a new module for the updated Places for Business Dashboard, not only shows Google based reviews to dashboard owners and managers, it shows every review […]
Get More Traffic & Social Shares with the OnePress Social Locker Plugin (a Review)
Honestly, I forget where I first encountered what’s referred to as a social content locker. I saw it on a blog somewhere and immediately wanted to know how they were doing it. A quick view of the source code led me to the OnePress Social Locker Plugin for WordPress where I promptly purchased a license […]
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Google Rolling out New + Page Layout – Reviews Lost in the Process
It seems that the new layout first reported on October 23rd is now rolling out world wide. As noted at the time The big difference is that the page now can be displayed in either a single, two or three column layouts depending on browser window width as opposed to the current fixed two column […]
Google: Reviews, How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
If one stops and counts how many times the word review or the star ratings show on the front page of Google one can only conclude that Google not only thinks they are important but that they are of tantamount importance in local searches. These screen shots above the fold of local searches were done […]
How To Leave Anonymous Business Reviews In Google+
For a long time, I’ve had some doctor friends complaining to me that once Google Places changed over to the new Google+ format, all their patients lost the ability to leave anonymous reviews (thus hurting their business and their rankings). They asked me what to do; and I, in turn, asked my…
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SEMRush Review – A Kickass Keyword Research Tool, Rank Tracker & More
I’ve “known about” SEMRush for a long time. I’d heard people mention it and had seen the site, but I’d never really used it until my partner in PushFire signed up for it. He loved the service – and since we were paying for it – I decided to fully check it out. It quickly […]
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The Structured Data Brouhaha At SMX East: Clarifying Contentious Issues
If you attended the Structured Data Superstars session at SMX East earlier this month, you probably witnessed a very brief interchange between myself and Googler Pierre Far at the end of the session. Pierre woke everyone up by stating that some of the semantic markup recommendations I’d…
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Google Becoming Slightly More Transparent About Nuking Reviews
Historically at Google Local, if a review triggered the spam filter, the reviewer would still see the review associated with the business if they were logged in and other users would not. The reviewer would have no clue as to why the review wasn’t showing. This “technique” for handling “spammy” reviews led to many, many […]
NY State AG Brings Down the Hammer on Fake Reviews (Again)
The NY Times is reporting that the NY State Attorney General will be announcing a crackdown today against 19 NY based companies, both SMBs and “reputation management” firms, for posting fake reviews online. The companies will pay fines totaling $350,000 and agree to cease to the practice. “Among those signing the agreements are a charter […]
Reviews And Lawsuits – Is There a Better Way?
Yelp received a lot of attention in the online world last week for suing a bankruptcy lawyer (who had previously sued them and won) for leaving fake reviews. Suing a single practitioner may have some value in terms of the publicity and alerting businesses to the risks of creating fake reviews. But given the scale of […]
10 Questions To Ask Before You Hire a Customer Review Management Service
I have been doing a bit of work in the reputation management space as of late, and the subject of customer review management comes up a lot. There are probably hundreds of review management services out there, and it’s difficult to understand what makes one better than the other. With that in…
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FightMe the Competitors’ Social Network – a Review
FightMe.com – the competitor’s social network a review by Sarah Bradley for State of Search. FightMe is an exciting new social network based on the idea of rivalry, Sarah gives her insight on usability, appeal and whether a network like this can one day compete with the likes of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.
Post from Sarah Bradley on State of Search
FightMe the Competitors’ Social Network – a Review
In Search of The Purchased Google Review. Yours for $1.40 ea.
Last night I went in search of the purchased Google review. I was curious what the high ranking results were for phrases like buy Google reviews and how much a review would cost. Far and away the most compelling was from the number 1 ranked exact match domain: buygooglereviews.com. Reviews started at $2 each when […]