The review system online has long been one of theist ways in which you can decide on where to eat or which product to buy, but this may soon become a thing of the past if we are not able to separate the false reviews from the genuine ones. Thankfully there is some light at the end of the tunnel with sites like Top Consumer Reviews which seek to set things right and get genuine reviews from consumers, but there is a big danger that the entire review structure falls apart.
To those of you who aren’t aware, there are many people who are paid to write a falsely positive review and there are even review fairs abroad which literally specialize in writing fake reviews, but why on Earth do companies spend their money on doing it?
Fixing Issues
Very often companies will go through a rough patch with their business and the reviews will be coming in thick and fast from people telling others that they shouldn’t use the business for one reason or another. They panic and then that is when they decide that instead of fixing the issues which they have inside the business, that the easiest option is to instead fix the reviews, and so they pay people to try and clean them up. The thing with this however is that unless they fix the issue, the negatives will continue to come in, and they still won’t look great.
Organic Search
Organic search is the most popular form of finding new customers and each year it just gets bigger and bigger, so too does mobile organic search. This is why businesses know that now more than ever their reputation online is everything to them and if they want to keep on bringing in new customers they have to ensure that their online ratings match what they believe their business to be. Because of this level of importance, they want to find the fast way to the top and so they will invest money in getting fake reviews so that they can generate more interest in what they are doing. The risk with this is that if they are not able to back up that paid for positivity, their money will have been wasted.
Making Money
Ultimately the reason why so many businesses will invest in these fake reviews is because they want to make more money, and they are not prepared to do things in the clean, old fashioned way that people always have. Although you may see a restaurant with 4.8 out of 5 and have a bad meal there, you can be safe in the knowledge that the truth will out, because high reviews do increase sales, but then they are exposed for offering a poor quality product or service, and those reviews will go right back the other way.
Next time you are reading reviews, bear in mind that what you are seeing may not be the whole truth.
