Google My Business Listing is often regarded as the creator of the local SEO strategy. It has helped millions of local & small business units to establish themselves on the search engines and serve the modern search engine queries. Then there come the consumers & users who find it extremely easy to reach the best goods & service providers around their localities. They are given the right to share their opinion regarding any product or service they consume.
As such, you’re provided with a dedicated review & rating section on your Google My Business profile. The feature doesn’t require you to merely fetch the top local SEO results but to remind your business drawbacks from time to time. Nearly every business undertaking has to undergo some negative reviews that aren’t intentional but factual. But, what happens when you start getting a Negative Review Attack?
Imagine you left your Google My Business (GMB) account with a 4-star rating yesterday and came to figure out it has dropped right below 2 today morning. Quite dreadful, isn’t it? Now imagine that you reviewed your account after a few days. You can get some serious chills right away. Because a Negative Review Attack is no prank, it can ruin your website traffic & consequently your local SEO ranking.
If you’re going through a corresponding mess you can visit eGoodMedia anytime for technical support. We understand your search engine advertising prerequisites and safeguard your web presence against intent search rankings drop. Through this article, we need you to stay conscious of the Negative Review Attack & preventive measures you can employ.
Here are the principal portions of the discussion:
- How to define a Negative Review Attack?
- Consequences of Negative Review Attack
- How to overcome a Negative Review Attack?
- Final Thoughts
Negative Review Attack is good to be figured out ahead of time. As such we suggest you must conduct an everyday check for the same. For more details, let’s proceed with the topic!
How To Define A Negative Review Attack?
Determining a Negative Review Attack is no difficult. Most of the Negative Review Attacks are fake & inspired by unfavorable sources. They are intentionally embedded in your Google My Business profile to degrade your worth on the search engine listing. Though there could also be some genuine comments addressing cons in your service or product, you can easily figure them out. Consequently, you can find certain degrading reviews associated with a common profile. These are simply violations of the Google norms & you can get help and support accordingly.
However, you must figure out the issue way ahead of time. The Google crawlers aren’t smart enough to inspect whether the reviews are intentional or honest. Therefore we suggest you must review your Google My Business Profile frequently. Google allows businesses to remove such comments or reviews following the enlisted conditions:
- Numerous negative reviews from the same source
- Reviews from competitors that are inappropriate
- Irrelevant reviews with respect to your business, goods & services
- Reviews for the wrong location
- Reviews from former employees & workers
- Negative reviews from the current employees of the company
- Nominal or unrealistic reasons for negative reviews
- Spammy & fake reviews etc
All these factors lead to the wrong business image that you never possess. Once you find the reviews are intentionally targeted toward your search engine presence you must report to Google right away!
Consequences Of Negative Review Attack
The most notable impact of a Negative Review Attack could be experienced on the website SEO. Your Google My Business profile is essentially situated on the search engine result page to provide for the specified queries. It is often considered an alternative source of organic traffic for your website. Therefore, a Negative Review Attack can spoil your website’s SEO strategy overnight. Look at the enlisted consequences of fake negative reviews on your business:
1. You Lost Your Consumers
An eCommerce website could be most affected. Reviews depict your web reliability before the consumers and therefore you can’t count on a list of multiple fake negative reviews. You have to change this condition or else you’re going to lose your leading consumer groups. One negative review, whether genuine or not, could create doubt over a consumer’s mind. You have to ensure the best eCommerce service for a specified product line.
2. Online Business Reputation
Online business reputation is way more essential than a physical business reputation, especially for local undertakings these days. If you’re not famous online you’re not famous offline too. Online Reputation Management (ORM) has become a crucial factor affecting your digital marketing strategy and global business leaders are ready to spend millions to wash their image online. You cannot find appealing clients, investors, consumers, or even potential employees to work for you. Therefore, you have to remove your website’s fake review attack as soon as possible.
3. Declining Revenue
If you don’t pay attention to your Negative Review Attack for a quite long time you’re probably going to lose your company revenue status. The revenue of the company is a substantial factor to attract potential investors from all over the world. An inappropriate Google My Business profile can affect your business value drastically. A long list of negative reviews can change your business reputation overnight & prevent potential companies from reaching you. A group of business partners could help you with your online presence, however, you have to earn them first.
4. Search Rankings Drop
Getting dropped on an open world platform could be understood, but getting dropped on a local business listing is quite indigestible. Even worse is not being displayed anywhere on the search results either. Doesn’t matter if you’ve got a Google My Business Account. You just have to approach expert advice to recreate your business presence on search engines. There could be other reasons for search rankings drop, however, you initially need to examine your search engine listing. You can build some fresh consumers on a regular basis if not being exiled from your local listing so don’t ignore it.
5. Lose Referring Domains & Backlinks
If you know about off-page SEO you might understand its significance for website ranking. But many out there don’t. These aspects are interrelated as they all aim toward search engine optimization. And SEO is again an important part of your online business strategies. If you’ve got a serious Negative Review Attack you may lose your website backlinks which are very essential for your website’s search engine rank. This means you get triggered from all sides.
There can be other factors affecting your search engine ranking apart from fake google reviews. For comprehensive support, you can reach eGoodMedia anytime & enhance your alternatives to achieve the best organic traffic out there. We also help you get rid of various search engine & SEO threats like Negative Review Attacks!
How To Overcome A Negative Review Attack?
Now you have got a Negative Review Attack & you just came to know it. What to do next? Do you have to delete your Google listing account? Can you remove those negative reviews completely? All these questions are vital for you to be answered ahead of time. Or else, you have to start over. So you don’t need to worry like it’s the end of the story. There are other alternatives to overcome the problem. Search engines are a world of uncertainties and you have to experience at least some of them.
Internet marketing trends are changing day by day and what so ever you’ve got to learn so far is going to vanish tomorrow. However, certain norms remain unchanged for a long time. But you have to remember them respectively. Here are some important instructions you need to follow amid suffering from a serious Negative Review Attack:
1. Stay Usual
Probably most of the online guides would recommend you to keep calm and it is important. We have ample examples of people crushing their computer systems out of rage & anxiety out there. That’s childish. This is nothing but a test of your patience and you must overcome it. The problems related to IT & stuff and online business settings never ends. One more thing you need to remember is that such reviews don’t need to be answered or resolved. You can’t fill a glass that’s not empty with anything.
One more advantage of keeping calm is that you can think better. There are solutions but you can’t see them along with a distressed mind. You have to examine the root cause of the problem and that’s not going to be easy all the time. That’s why you’re advised to keep calm.
2. Start With Flags
Google allows you to flag inappropriate negative reviews on your GMB profile. However, it doesn’t mean you’re ready to execute a personal call to the support team. You have to wait for 2 to 3 days. In the meantime, Google analyzes if the negative reviews on your profile violate the general Terms of Service (TOI). After that, you can put a call to the support team via Facebook or Twitter. Make sure to create a Google Doc & mention the following details over there:
- Names of the reviewers who are creating an irrelevant mess
- Links to their Google or other profiles
- Describe the reasons why you’re reporting against the review
This is a perfect way you can exhibit your problem before the Google support team. Providing systematic & genuine information not only helps them figure out the problem but find a solution as well. Alternatively, you may also take the help of a search engine marketing support team to switch your time for other business responsibilities. eGoodMedia is always there to support revolutionary entrepreneurs like you to focus on your business objectives & get rid of the complicated aspects of internet marketing!
3. Reach Out To GMB Support
Apart from Twitter & Facebook, you can also create a thread of queries before the latest GMB Community Forum. It was recently initiated to withstand the COVID-19 phase and to help global business owners to interact with internet users directly to resolve their issues. Coming back to Negative Reviews Attack, the community forum will help you grab multiple suggestions for your GMB profile issue. You can share the following information to reach a GMB product expert accordingly:
- The name of your business or online service
- Detailed location of your business undertaking
- Link of the Google Doc you’ve created earlier to address the offending reviews
- Make sure to enable the document viewing or editing permissions if required
- If you’re new to Google Docs, you can click on the “Share” button on the top right corner of your Google Document to change the permissions
- After that visit the “Get Link” section of the sharing block
- Go to “Change Link” at the bottom & that’s it, you can change the permission as you need
This way you can easily share your problem with the GMB community or experts. You can wait until you get a relevant solution to your problem or permission to remove those fake reviews!
4. The GMB Support Action
The GMB Community Forum Thread gives you the facility to share your concern multiple times until the reviews aren’t wiped out completely. The GMB Product Expert (PE) often checks the community forum thread to ensure if it could reach Google employees. If the same is approved, it is sent to Google for further action. What so ever is the result, it is forwarded to the PE within 2 weeks via email. The thread is updated and the Product Expert is required to check if the reviews were removed completely or not.
If any of the reviews left embedded you can approach the community thread once again and file your complaint. The same procedure would take place until you’re clear with your Google My Business profile. That’s it, you’re not free to conduct your search engine optimization strategy again!
5. Keep Responding To Reviews
The story doesn’t end up here. Responding back to genuine user queries is indeed a fine habit to maintain your Google My Business profile. It is a never-ending or very long term procedure. New users & consumers keep establishing relationships with your online business and the story continues. The reviews can be distributed into the following categories:
- Positive & Optimistic Reviews
- Negative But Encouraging Reviews
- Fake Negative Review Attack
- Positive Yet Demanding Reviews
- Negative & Genuine Reviews
- Informative Reviews
- Product Or Service User Experience Reviews etc
No matter what kind of reviews you experience you must exhibit a kind response in return, except for Fake Negative Review Attack. If you’ve got a solution for specified reviewers, mention the same in your response. You will end up building a strong relationship with your consumers & users in the long run.
6. Online Reputation Management Tools
Not just tools, there are many renowned ORM service providers to serve you. If you know that you aren’t able to fix things yourself, getting dedicated support isn’t a bad idea. At eGoodMedia we always aspire to pull you out of your search engine concerns so that together we could bring the best solutions to various user problems on the internet.
If you try to push things without the proper experience & knowledge about the Negative Review Attack, you can bring more pain to your business strategy. Many webmasters make such mistakes. Instead, you can also take the help of an Online Reputation Intelligence Tool. Complete a proper training session if required!
7. Encourage The Users
If you’ve got an online food delivery or restaurant aggregator business, this marketing strategy could bring you heaven right at your doorstep. The best thing about this technique is that you don’t have to spend a single penny & get a flood of positive business reviews. Now, what’s Negative Review Attack for? If you could increase the number of positive reviews exceptionally you don’t have to worry much about a few Fake Negative Reviews. The tool is right here. Intensify your relationships with active positive consumer groups & encourage them to recommend your name to other users too & you’re good to go!!
8. Beware Of Fake Reviews
In the future too, you must ensure security against such fake review attacks. For this, you can appoint a full-fledged internet marketing team either private or official. If you’ve got a renowned online business you can set up a digital marketing department of your own. This could help you inspect your online marketing efforts easily. However, most of the internet marketing companies provide for your consumer satisfaction & you may rely on them. After all, they’ve got substantial competition to overcome also.
Moreover, you can also build a small team if you’re running a local business in your locality. There you need to sell a specified product or service. Make sure not to trigger beyond that or else you gotta face an insignificant burden. All the best!
Final Thoughts
So that’s all about Negative Review Attack. The modern internet age is fun yet challenging to execute an online business plan. However, you’ve got adequate channels to support you. You can get knowledge & educate others against emerging search engine uncertainties & threats. eGoodMedia is also there to assist you throughout your quest for exceptional search engine marketing & conversation optimization goals. Reach us today!!
