Removing Negative Google Reviews [Field Test]

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I got my eyes on you.
 
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There's actually a guy who removes reviews in the blackhatworld marketplace lol
 
Update #5:

Dropped another flag this morning, desktop. Awaiting results. Making arrangements for more accounts for the week.

-ThopHayt
 
Update #6:

Taking today off from flagging to acquire more accounts. This may be a longer battle than I'd hoped.

-ThopHayt
 
Update #7:

Flagged from two more accounts. Review still stands position seems constant now as well.

-ThopHayt
 
Interesting progress, Looking forward to hearing about what happened in the end.
 
My clients are always flipping out about reviews. I've made a shit ton of dummy accounts just to make sure I can boost their ratings. It's a real pain in the ass. If you can figure this out, you'll be a great man. Don't share it though! (Share it with me)
 
Great thread...i live down the street from work so this would be great if it worked.
 
ThopHayt said:
Ok, so I keep seeing threads pop up with people asking how they can 'remove a negative review.' Like most of you SEO'ers and ORM experts I'll tell them its simply easier to wash it out with positive reviews. But, since I'm creeping up on my 5,000th post I'd like to do a little test just to see how hard it actually is to get a review taken down.

For my test I've randomly selected a negative review of a legit business on Google. Its a brand new review left just a few hours ago, and the business has been brick and mortar that's been in NY for 25 years. I intend to flag the shit out of it over a period of days until Google removes the review. Lets see if this actually works as so many here have requested...

Day One (last night):
I flagged the review using a hyper-local aged Google account that is a registered Local Guide. I only have a couple of these at my disposal for this geo-targeted area, but I wanted to start out with a high authority flag. I flagged this one using a mobile device, in the actual Google Maps app WHILE actually in NY, which is where I'm flagging the review. This is believed to be the highest level of trust for a reviewer activity. As of this morning the review is still up, but I have more actions planned.

~Stay Tuned For Daily Updates and My Eventual Findings~

-ThopHayt
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Hi i am intersted can you please pm with your skype?
 
Ah I just realized I got frustrated and never made my final post on this study. Let me sum it up for you guys:

Final Update:

I spend days of research and over $175 in accounts, bribes, and other various costs. In the end, outside seeing the review get pushed down a bit, the test was essentially a failure. The review remained to spite a constant barrage of quality and geo located flags, many of which came from Local Guide accounts. My only conclusion can be that unless a review meets some sort of criteria for offensive or harmful content, G simply doesn't like taking reviews down. Now if I had chose a review that had the word 'bitch' in it or one that made a threat or something it very well may have worked and been removed... but a review with vanilla content seems to be more difficult to remove than my tests could leverage. Am I a bit bitter? Yes. But we learned something. Unless you're content with simply moving the position of a review, flagging may not be the best option for your ORM dollars. IMHO flooding it with geo located positive reviews seems like a far better and cheaper option.

-ThopHayt
 
ThopHayt said:
Ah I just realized I got frustrated and never made my final post on this study. Let me sum it up for you guys:

Final Update:

I spend days of research and over $175 in accounts, bribes, and other various costs. In the end, outside seeing the review get pushed down a bit, the test was essentially a failure. The review remained to spite a constant barrage of quality and geo located flags, many of which came from Local Guide accounts. My only conclusion can be that unless a review meets some sort of criteria for offensive or harmful content, G simply doesn't like taking reviews down. Now if I had chose a review that had the word 'bitch' in it or one that made a threat or something it very well may have worked and been removed... but a review with vanilla content seems to be more difficult to remove than my tests could leverage. Am I a bit bitter? Yes. But we learned something. Unless you're content with simply moving the position of a review, flagging may not be the best option for your ORM dollars. IMHO flooding it with geo located positive reviews seems like a far better and cheaper option.

-ThopHayt
Click to expand...

Technically not a failure, you got a confirmed result to your experiment at least; just not the result you wanted :-)
 
davids355 said:
Technically not a failure, you got a confirmed result to your experiment at least; just not the result you wanted :)
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Exactly. I was pretty confident going in, oh well. At least now we know I suppose.

-ThopHayt
 
I don't think Google is stupid enough to bow to something like this. For example, if they see 10 users navigate to the review thing and all 10 flag it, that's gotta look a bit suspicious right? Have you thought about mixing manual reviews, with some normal traffic? And another thing I had in mind, which is a twist of an Instagram method I read, why not create some negative reviews yourself from multiple accounts (making sure google will remove the reviews when asked) and then report all of the negative reviews. That way Google may assume that the review you want removing is part of the spam.

Just a random idea I had, not sure if it's retarded or not.
 
hasa1015 said:
I don't think Google is stupid enough to bow to something like this. For example, if they see 10 users navigate to the review thing and all 10 flag it, that's gotta look a bit suspicious right? Have you thought about mixing manual reviews, with some normal traffic? And another thing I had in mind, which is a twist of an Instagram method I read, why not create some negative reviews yourself from multiple accounts (making sure google will remove the reviews when asked) and then report all of the negative reviews. That way Google may assume that the review you want removing is part of the spam.

Just a random idea I had, not sure if it's retarded or not.
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Personally, I don't think this would work. I'm sure at least a couple people who have been blasted with spammy, fake negative reviews have also tried to report some legitimate reviews along with the fake ones. I don't doubt Google knows all the tricks on the book.
 
You can remove negative reviews from google business listing by sending legal report with account names a links to comments. I remove all of 8 negative reviews from comeptiton (google.uk) one by one.
Flagging review is not working for me.
 
sitognar said:
You can remove negative reviews from google business listing by sending legal report with account names a links to comments. I remove all of 8 negative reviews from comeptiton (google.uk) one by one.
Flagging review is not working for me.
Click to expand...
Interesting find. Can you explain a little bit more of what this "legal report" would look like? Is it something along the lines of telling Google that they're slanderous and asking them to be removed on legal grounds for that reason?

Can any other members state whether or not they've done something similar and had success with it?
 
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