How to Deal With Fake Negative Reviews

Posted on 2nd Aug, 2018 by Barbara Davidson

If you’re a small business owner, you know how important online reviews can be when it comes to growing your business and attracting new customers. So the last thing you need is someone spreading damaging lies about your business on the web by leaving you a fake negative review.

These days it’s quick and easy for people to set up a profile and say anything they want about your business. Maybe it’s a competitor, or just someone looking to cause you some trouble. Whatever the reasons, this is a very real issue that should be dealt with swiftly.

It might be tempting to simply ignore the review – after all, it’s not from a real customer. But surveys show that potential customers rely heavily on online reviews when deciding to do business with a company, and many aren’t able to recognize fake ones. So it goes without saying that just a couple of negative sentences left on your business profile can do some real damage to your reputation.

Now for the good news: there are a few simple ways to handle bogus reviews and maintain your reputation with consumers. Our step-by-step guide tells you everything you need to know – from how to identify a review as fake to how to respond and, ultimately, get the review removed. We’ve also included some tips to help you more easily monitor your reviews in the future, so you can stay on top of any fake ones.

Our guide looks at some of the most popular review websites, so wherever you have a business profile, we’ve got you covered.

Sources

Bright Local. (2017) Local Consumer Review Survey. brightlocal.com

Review Trackers. (2018) Google Is Dominating the Review Market. reviewtrackers.com

Real Simple. (2018) How to Spot Fake Online Product Reviews. realsimple.com

Low, J. (2017) How to Remove Fake Google Reviews. whitespark.ca

Roque, N. (2018) How to Flag Fake or Negative Online Reviews on Google, Facebook, and Yelp.repcheckup.com

Murphy, C. (2014) How to Report Fraud on TripAdvisor. revinate.com

Yell. (2018) Help for business owners. yell.com

Torrillo, J. (2018) How to Report Fake Google Reviews. reputationmanagement.com

Reputation Stacker. (2018) Fake Online Reviews – How To Deal With Fake Customers Reviews In 4 Simple Steps. reputationstacker.com

Hawkins, J. (2018) How to Deal with Fake Negative Reviews on Google. moz.com