Gaming on Yelp: How Big a Problem?

Over the weekend the NY Times published an article on the problem of third party firms that post fake reviews on Yelp for a fee ? positive about you or negative about your competition:

?I was in need of teeth whitening and my friend referred me to Southland Dental,? begins a thumbs-up for a clinic in Sherman Oaks, Calif. Then there?s a description of the whitening procedure favored by Southland, and this closer: ?Pain or no pain, it was very much worth it. I can?t stop staring at my bright smile in the mirror.?

This reads like a rave on Yelp, but it?s actually a sample from a help-wanted ad on another site ? specifically, Mechanical Turk, a Web site owned by Amazon.com and a place where companies invite ?Mechanical Turk workers? ? thousands are registered, worldwide ? to complete what could be described as microtasks. Each task pays a tiny sum. In the case of Southland Dental, workers were asked to write a fake, five-star review and post it to Southland?s Yelp page, for which they would earn 25 cents.

This is Yelp?s equivalent of ?black hat SEO.? Google has said for years it can?t reveal more about its algorithm because it doesn?t want to tip off spammers. As Yelp has grown in visibility and influence ? and as ?reputation management? has become a marketable field ? the company is fighting more efforts to game its reviews.

In the past business owners and consumers have been upset that positive reviews have disappeared from Yelp. However as the Times article illustrates, Yelp is absolutely compelled to protect the credibility of its content ? and will probably have to step up its efforts.

You can still see reviews that have been flagged as dubious in a ?filtered? area at the bottom of the profile page. Below are a couple from the Southland Dental Care profile:

I?ve also noticed more firms saying they?ll generate positive reviews for a fee. While this is outright fraud, there?s an increasing amount of activity in the gray area of merchant review solicitation. Yelp condemns it but more and more SMBs and others are doing it (and being advised to do it).

Here?s an interesting case-in-point that was sent to me from one of the reputation platform providers:

What it says (click to enlarge) is that the consumer received a follow-up call from the merchant offering a $25 voucher if she posted a positive review. She adds, ?So, when readying any positive ads [sic] keep in mind that they were paid $25 to do it.?

There are other scenarios with a less obvious ?quid pro quo? for positive reviews: ?write a review and enter for a chance to win . . .? There are also many merchants simply asking to be reviewed without any incentive. It seems to me this is entirely ethical. And one can argue that SMBs who aren?t asking to be reviewed are not being smart about online marketing.

There are plenty of SEOs/SEMs who argue asking for reviews online is identical to asking for testimonials in the ?old days.? And I would generally agree.

Speaking of which, testimonials on SMB sites are particularly vulnerable to gaming, paid solicitation and fraud (by the SMB). Google started out treating testimonials like reviews for Places but has since reconsidered its policy for these reasons.

One might argue that social search and ?friend filters? will eventually address the problem of trust and review fraud. I don?t agree because there won?t be sufficient coverage of all the places I?m interested in by my network. So the cat and mouse game will likely go on ? unless reviews somehow lose their overall importance.

I don?t see that happening any time soon.

Source: http://www.screenwerk.com/2011/05/23/gaming-on-yelp-how-big-a-problem/

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