Recent content by razorclicks

Looks like Google is finally getting (somewhat) serious about fighting Local Listings Spam. This was a sloppy perpetrator, so it was easy to catch. Google posted the lawsuit filing on their blog against the LA based operator who created 350 fake businesses and had over 14,000 fake reviews...

I read Joy Hawkins article about a business donating to charity in exchange for a review is considered review manipulation. Has there ever been examples of Google removing a business's reviews when they suspect such kinds of manipulation? If so, is there a way to ever appeal their decision?

What does the button actually take you to?

Max, do you know if the total number of reviews for your establishment is now including those reviews, or not?

In displaying the list of reviews, Google doesn't show the reviews in chronological order by default. Instead, reviews are shown by what Google refers to as "Most Relevant". What criteria is used by Google to decide if a review is more relevant? In order to find out, we did a quick study of...

No, I don't think that really does anything. Whatever can be easily manipulated doesn't count in Google's ranking formula.

Can you please clarify where we can find our GMB Profile CID? Is it in the string of the URL?

If you are talking about on-page optimization, then I would just focus on photos & reviews (and the occasional post or two). If you are talking about off-page optimization, there is a ton of work that you can do. (citations, directory submissions, link building, etc.)

On our listing we have a 1 star review that is coming up first under the "Most Relevant" setting for the past month or so, even though there are many new 4 and 5 star reviews that have come afterwards. The thing is - that negative review has about 500 words (sheesh!). Could it be that the length...

Phil - I couldn't stop laughing when I read this! (But I can't help but think that it might have gone right over people's heads.)

What criteria determines which reviews get shown in the review summary snippets? There are usually three reviews, often they are truncated, and aren't very complementary of the business. Here is an example - the third one has been sitting there for years now, even though the business has many...

What do you mean they round to the nearest half star? Don't we see 4.8 and 4.9 all the time?

I wonder if we can glean any SEO insights from the other businesses that Google is considering "like yours". Some of them are on target, but others are laughable!

Hi all, I have a client that had an angry customer leave what they thought was a negative review on the "Ask a Question" section. It is a terribly written, poor spelling, and obviously false. How should I go about getting Google to remove it? After all, it's not a question, just an angry post.

Please let us know what happens with this. We are all waiting with anticipation to see if you can have it successfully removed.