Why does Google let this happen?

[MatttB]

There are hundreds of review sites popping up all over the internet with fake reviews. Most of the time companies are bashing their competitors with fake complaints.

It seems like a great place to bash businesses and leave a 1 star. Some of these review sites are ranked #2 right under the company that was Googled. I wonder why google is ranking these review sites so high? Most of them are garbage.

Any thoughts on this? I hope Google pushing these review sites to the back pages.

[keyplyr]

Hi MatttB and welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]

I don't see what Google has to do with who gets a good review or not. Google is just returning relevant information associated with your search.

I agree that many reviews are bogus and that they can hurt the trust factor of the respective business. It's happened to me a couple times. I've had so called "clients" that have never done business with me write very bad reviews.

That's the nature of reviews... a double edged sword.

[tangor]

Chalk some of this up to "negative SEO" wherein the competitor (or their webmaster for hire) do what they can to offset opposing biz. Nature of the beast.

I will say that g (and b) for the most part eventually get it right over time and suppress ... after all, it's "fake news".