I was told that Summers Roofing & Construction in Meridian, Idaho, was engaging in suspicious reviews. The Google Business Profile (GBP) received 69 reviews in December. They went from 32 reviews to 101 reviews. There are suspicious patterns in the reviews. Twenty-five of the reviewers have set their profiles to private. Only eight reviewers have written more than one review. Thirty-nine of the reviewers appear to be from out of state. All but two of the reviewers have reviewed businesses in Florida.
It appears that the reviews are copied and pasted. The review posted by The Micro Space starts with “3.” There are two sets of identical reviews. In the first set, two reviewers wrote identical reviews. In the second set, four people wrote identical reviews. Countless reviews are missing punctuation.
Typically, when I see a spike in reviews, it’s to combat a negative review. That is not the case here, as Summers had a perfect 5-star rating. It seems the reviews were posted to help increase online visibility. So far, the reviews haven’t helped improve the rankings. The business had added Meridian to their GBP. They lost their rankings after I removed it from the name. The review by Lil spooky has been removed.
