On Friday, March 20th, 2020 Google removed the ability for users to post reviews on Google My Business listings. Not only was the ability to post a review disabled, but Google also disabled the ability for businesses to respond to reviews. Currently, if a user leaves a review, Google is confirming that the review was posted and the user can see the review in their account. Once the user logs out of Google, they won’t see the review. The business will not get the review and has no way of seeing it. It is unclear if the review will be published at a later date or if the review will just disappear into the ether.

Google also removed the Q&A section completely. Instead of turning off the ability to post a new question or add an answer, they removed the feature completely, along with old questions and answers. I am failing to see the logic here unless Google couldn’t temporarily stop or pause this feature. This would be a great opportunity for businesses to let their customers know that they are still open or what options they have to serve their clients. Time will tell when Q&A’s get added back onto GMB and in what capacity.

The worst thing Google has done is starting marking open businesses as temporarily closed. Google came up with a method to determine which businesses are open and which ones are closed. Sadly, it appears that Google has mistakenly been marking open businesses as temporarily closed. Any business marked as ‘temporarily closed” will not show up in normal searches. For example, I performed the following search.

I was presented the knowledge panel for their corporate location. I had to search on Google maps to get the business listing to show up by looking for a business near them and zooming in on the map and then clicking on the business I wanted.

I don’t see how hiding or filtering out temporarily closed businesses is good for users or the business themselves. One of the main purposes of a GMB listing is to provide valuable information to consumers. If I want to know if a business is open, I can’t rely on Google as I can’t even find the business listing to find the telephone number or check the status.

Hopefully, Google will reevaluate its response to Covid-19 and help businesses and consumers. In the meantime, we are at Google’s mercy.

The post Google My Business overreacts to Covid-19 first appeared on Review Fraud.

So I clicked on the Twitter profile for Ryan Stewart and immediately recognized the profile photo was of Ryan Gosling. Within minutes of this “Ryan” following me on Twitter, I received not one but two emails offering Guest Posting service. Gmail was smart enough to mark one of the messages as spam. The other email was delivered to my inbox. “Ryan” wasn’t done and sent me a request to connect on LinkedIn along with an offer to buy Guest Posts. I wish I was done, but “Ryan” sent me a Facebook friend request. This guy really wanted to sell to me. 

I reported the email — the one that Gmail was unable to tag as spam — as spam. I reported the profiles to Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Facebook got back to me and let me know that this profile does not violate its TOS. The Facebook account was created on April 2, 2018 — almost six months ago — as that is when the first profile photo was uploaded. I have yet to hear anything from LinkedIn or Twitter.

I am not holding my breath to hear back from LinkedIn. I have reported fake accounts before and I have never seen any action taken. The company I work for has the following fake employees: Mr. Charles Daniels, Joe Knowledge, Don La Due, Robbie Drake, and Sophie Cai. Ms. Cai’s job title is Toothbrush. I reported all of those fake accounts and none of them were ever removed. 

Do these platforms not care about spam and abuse? Why have TOS if the platforms refuse to enforce them? I assisted a business owner whose Google My Business listing received a photo of a nude woman. The profile in question posted nude and sexually explicit photos on several Google listings. After reporting the profile all of the photos were removed but Google did not suspend the offending account. It’s as if these platforms care more about their metrics and not their actual customers.

The post Are Platforms Protecting Spammers or You first appeared on Review Fraud.

Review in minutes:

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The post Google replaces in the last week first appeared on Review Fraud.