981 – Reviews are a double edged sword: Tom talks Review Deletions

SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

In this episode of Screw the Commute, Tom Antion discusses why online reviews, particularly Google and Amazon reviews, get deleted. He shares insights from a study that analyzed 5 million reviews across 79 countries and 20,000 companies, revealing key trends in review removals.
Key Takeaways:
• Most Deleted Reviews:
o Five-star reviews (73.1%) are deleted the most, often suspected of being fake or incentivized.
o One-star reviews (12.8%) are also frequently removed, likely due to spam or inappropriate language.
o Mid-range reviews (2-4 stars) are less likely to be deleted, as they are viewed as more balanced and credible.
• Content Triggers for Deletion:
o Reviews mentioning service and staff are deleted six times more often than those discussing product quality.
o Reviews from people who know the business owner personally (e.g., employees, friends, or family) are often removed.
o Generic, overly positive phrases like "good service" or "nice staff" can trigger removal.
• How to Protect Your Reviews:
o Engage with reviews by responding to all feedback, both positive and negative.
o Flag and report fake reviews, especially from competitors.
o Avoid incentives for reviews, as they violate platform policies.
o Encourage authentic, balanced reviews rather than overly glowing five-star ratings.
Tom emphasizes that while review removals can be frustrating, following best practices can help maintain credibility. He encourages businesses to focus on legitimate customer feedback and report fraudulent reviews when necessary.

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Episode 981 – Review Deletions
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody! It's Tom here with episode 981 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today we're going to talk about review deletions. In other words, you kill yourself to get great reviews for your business or your products and services and they get deleted. Well, let's talk about why that happens today. All right. I hope you didn't miss episode 980. That was another reason to quit killing yourself on search engine optimization. Yes, I believe in basics, but you are just wasting time and money going too deep into search engine optimization. Make sure you pick up a copy of our automation e-book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree and check out my mentor program, the longest running, most successful, most unique ever in the field of internet and digital marketing at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com. And we also have a school, the only licensed dedicated internet and digital marketing school in the country at IMTCVA.org.

[00:01:24] All right, let's talk about this and I'm primarily going to talk about Google reviews. However, Amazon is very similar in a lot of the things they do to remove reviews because they want people to be able to trust the reviews. So I don't blame them for this, especially since a lot of people put up fake reviews and competitors put up fake reviews to try to mess with you and things like that. So I'm going to talk about a research thing that a company G e, G b, and I'll put the link to the actual study in the show notes.

[00:02:03] And they analyzed 5 million reviews in 79 different countries and 20,000 different companies. And where do you hear some of the results they got? So some of the things they found out is one and two star reviews are usually longer than three, four and five star reviews. And they kind of figured that, oh well, one and two star reviews. People are unhappy. So they really lay it on you, you know. So that's that's one of the things they found. But guess what. Reviews were deleted the most by Google. It was five star reviews. 73.1% of the reviews deleted were five star. And the conventional wisdom they they thought was that many of them were fake or incentivized. That means incentivized means. You said, oh, if you give if you give me a great five star review, I'll give you a free e-book or I'll give you a consultation or, you know, something, anything that you're giving them in exchange for the review. So don't do that now. Four star reviews were 8.7%, so almost ten times or nine times less deleted 3.4% of three star reviews and 2.1% of two star reviews. So the conventional wisdom here is that 2 to 4 star reviews are normally more balanced and more likely to be legit, and 2 to 4 star reviews have less of an impact on a business.

[00:03:51] So it's less likely that your competitor is going to give you a two, 3 or 4 star review. They're going to give you a one star, and it's less likely that you're going to give yourself a one, two, 3 or 4 star. You're going to give yourself a five star. So so the extremes are what they're looking for mostly. Also, they found out that the one star reviews 12.8% were removed. But the wisdom there was a lot of inappropriate language and just plain spam. So those are the breakdowns on on that five star, 73.1% are getting removed. Now, one thing that you can do to help is to reply to all your reviews. That's not 100% effective, but it definitely shows more legitimacy to your business. Now the content of the review. Where do you hear this? The content of the review matters, and this is one of those catch 22 things. And the content that I'm going to tell you about, about service and staff was removed six times as much as the next lower category, which was the product quality. So in other words, if somebody is is bragging about your. Service members or your staff. It makes the review way more likely to get get removed. And the catch 22 is you kill yourself to train people and get good, nice people to take care of your customers.

[00:05:30] And then it gets if they do a great job at it, your reviews get removed, I mean Jesus. So service and staff was the highest, uh, I think 60 some percent of the reviews that had uh, service and staff related content were removed. And the next lower category, which was like under 10%, was your product quality. And so the conventional wisdom, when I can say conventional wisdom, it's like what they think the reason is nobody knows for sure unless you work for Google. So they kind of feel like that service and staff type things are high risk category for spam and fake reviews, especially when it's a non brick and mortar store where people don't have to come into it. So you can say oh Joe at. At Antion associate is wonderful. Well there's nobody nobody comes here. It's all online. It's all phone and zoom. And so it's they they look at service type categories where people aren't actually coming into a store as high risk. Now, again, whether this stuff is true or not, we don't know for sure because Google is secretive and Amazon is secretive about how they do this stuff and their algorithms, and who writes the algorithms and all that stuff. Now, another thing, especially with employees or people that know you now, I'm pretty sure about this one that Amazon has been known to remove reviews if there's any hint that the person knows you.

[00:07:12] Like if somebody said, oh, Tom's been a great mentor to me over many years, boom, goodbye. They're going to take it out or my cousin is a wonderful landscaper. Well, goodbye. Or, you know, any of those things that let on that they know you. So if you if you are encouraging people to do reviews, you can coach them a little bit. You can't incentivize them, but you can coach them to. Don't be overly fantastic. How wonderful we are. In fact, if you get into some of the the the deletions, the deletions have to do with the reviewers reputation. So if the reviewer has a history of overly generic and excessively positive reviews and that even hint at potentially incentivized, you know, when they see millions and millions and millions of these, they can see trends of the stuff that's legit and isn't. And I'm sure, you know, there's plenty of mistakes in the system, but none of it none of the mistakes are good for you. I put it at that because they're more likely to just get rid of the review rather than leave it. And even words in the review which you think like, oh my God, I want people to feel like this about my business.

[00:08:36] So words in the review like good service, great, nice staff are all potential triggers when they look at the big picture of who's leaving the review and the reviews that they've left before and their reputation, and does it look incentivized and it doesn't look like they know you already. And I mean, all these things apply to it. So so what can you do about it? Well, first of all is you always want to engage. Stay on top of your reviews and thank people for reviews. If it's a bad review, you know, apologize, say you'll do better things like that or try to explain things that are going on. Now, if they're clearly fake or competitors coming after you, you can flag them and report them. Don't be afraid to do that. And that that makes somebody have to look at it and say, oh yeah, that's that person's leaving rotten reviews for all the other landscapers and their landscape company. So or they're related to a landscape company. So do that. And definitely no incentives. Don't even hint at ask people for a legitimate review. And you can even say it doesn't necessarily have to be a five star, because years ago I saw another study that the five star reviews are the least believable because they know people, fake them all the time, and they and they incentivize people to give them a five star review.

[00:10:07] And so I think it was 4.7 was the most believable review. Good reviews. Right. So tell them to leave a legitimate review. Five star only if they're over the moon on how great things were. But be you know, and it's hard to tell. People don't don't say I'm great. Say I'm just, you know, less than great. You see what I mean? The thing is, is if you just get legitimate reviews and do a good job, you'll be all right. All right. And then, of course, report any fake ones, even that are fake ones for you. Report them. And, boy, that makes your credibility look great. And that's the hardest button to ever push, is to say, oh, that person really loves me. I think I'm going to kick them off. All right. So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. So reviews are critically important. A buddy of mine, Derek Decker I think does a whole review or a whole course on, uh, reviews, uh, for books and things like that. But, uh, reviews are really important. You know, I check them all out whenever I buy something critical, that's for sure. So there you go. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. This is Tom from GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com, and I will catch you on the next episode. See you later.