Official ReviewBoost.Com Blog

good to know

2012-01-27T10:52:00.001-08:00

Reputationboost.com coming soon

2012-01-19T15:49:00.000-08:00

Indoor Google Maps, integration with Place Pages

2011-11-30T08:13:00.001-08:00

http://maps.google.com/help/maps/floorplans/

On Google's LatLong Blog it states " If you’re a business owner interested in getting your location’s floor plan included in Google Maps, visitmaps.google.com/floorplans." This will really help Google with a new form of content but will really help your business by giving customers an inside look.

Google Places Blog: See your rated places and discover new ones direct...

2011-11-15T15:54:00.000-08:00

Google Places Blog: See your rated places and discover new ones direct...: ( Cross-posted on the Lat Long Blog . ) Since the My Places tab was released earlier this summer, you’ve been able to view all the places...

Google States "creating new content to hide negative material is fair play"

2011-11-01T15:10:00.000-07:00

The Business Of Burying Internet Search Results

by PETER O’DOWD

Listen to the Story

All Things Considered

[5 min 5 sec]

EnlargeMatt York/AP

Ben Quayle is running for Congress in Arizona. But his campaign has suffered, in part, from the prominent ranking of Internet search results that detailed his contributions to an adult website.

text size A A A

October 18, 2010 from KJZZ

The Internet can be a hostile place, with powerful companies paying handsome sums to hide negative content in Google search results or any quest for information that might hurt their bottom line. Unseen battles are waged every day to protect and destroy brands and reputations.

Earlier this year, Fionn Downhill, the CEO of the digital marketing agency Elixir Interactive, had an image problem. An angry customer launched an attack campaign on the Internet by posting a blog that accused Downhill of stealing the client's money.

If you typed Elixir Interactive into Google, the blog was on top of the search results. And the blog made its point in capital letters — it said do not do business with Downhill's company.

"The person who did this knows exactly what they're doing because they knew exactly how to make this present in a very damaging way," Downhill says.

The Business Of Search Optimization

That's why Downhill believes the attack came from a competitor. Elixir Interactive specializes in search optimization, which means people are willing to pay the company up to a half a million dollars to boost their profile on search engines such as Google or Bing. The business also specializes in suppressing negative content.

In her case, Downhill created a barrage of new websites promoting positive content about her business. That pushed the offending blog to the third page of a Google search.

"If it wasn't for who we are, our reputation would have been destroyed," Downhill says.

According to the digital media research firm eMarketer, search optimization — and suppression — is a $2 billion industry. Prominent public companies including BP and Toyota spend fortunes in an effort to keep negative press about oil spills or faulty brakes far away from the first page of a Google search.

"It is an absolute game changer, and a fundamental piece of marketing for any company out there," says Jon Kaufman, a senior vice president at the search optimizer Zog Media. He says this industry is about who controls the message.

Impact On Political Campaigns

Ben Quayle, the son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, is a Republican candidate running for Congress in Arizona. Type Ben Quayle's name into Google and it's impossible to miss negative postings about the candidate's racy contributions to an adult website called Dirty Scottsdale.

Kaufman says voters will notice this. "Individuals who haven't made up their minds, they're going to be seriously swayed by what they see here," he says.

A few weeks ago, the dirt on Quayle was actually higher in the search results than his campaign website. And that is a case of brand management failure, according to search experts.

Quayle's communications director, Jay Heiler, says the way his campaign has contained the controversy is to be truthful about it. "The story is out there," Heiler says. "People who are attentive about it are going to see that it doesn't amount to much no matter how much it pops up."

But Kaufman says Quayle's team could do more, including create new Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, YouTube channels and other cheerful digital assets. Then, all the dirty stuff would be long gone, buried in the virtual basement of the Internet.

"One out of every million people is searching in the fifth page of search results," Kaufman says. "No one is going to see the bad stuff about this candidate."

This is where search suppression gets a little sticky. Free speech on the Internet increasingly comes down to who's able to pay for it, and which company is willing to manipulate the listings.

Free Speech On The Web

Search optimization companies are often approached by fraudulent businesses — and it's the search companies themselves that have the power to decide what should be hidden, and what should be upfront and public.

"I'm not going to suppress Bernie Madoff's information — certainly not," Kaufman says. "Is a piece of information about candidate Ben Quayle writing for a magazine something that should really play a part in voters' minds? Who am I to say, but I don't feel it crosses that line."

Ed Magedson, the founder of a consumer website called the Ripoff Report, says the line is crossed whenever anyone messes with the free flow of information. "People don't realize they're making a deal with the devil," Magedson says.

The Ripoff Report is a mecca for information that businesses don't want you to see. Each day, about 800 consumers add to a boiling stew of uncensored complaints against car mechanics, grumpy airlines and even search optimization companies.

Magedson says those companies sell a promise they can't deliver: "Suppressing information on the Internet does not do anyone any good, because it's always going to be found at a later date," he says. "It's still going to be there."

Critics of the Ripoff Report say Magedson actually fuels suppression efforts because he refuses to take down false complaints on his site.

Meanwhile, Google doesn't seem to have a problem with the whole game. As the world's largest search engine, a spokesman there says creating new content to hide negative material is fair play

14 steps to removing bad press from the internet as shown on Wham Wiki

2011-10-24T10:10:00.000-07:00

We agree with all these steps except for number 14 , cash? not a great idea. The nice part about this article is it really highlights all the parts of healing an online reputation by proactively promoting the positive allot of work but can be done by reviewboost.com for cheap. Here is the official link; http://whamwiki.com/index.php?title=How_To_Remove_Bad_Press_From_Internet

Google Place Pages will take edits for other sources besides the owner

2011-10-13T16:12:00.000-07:00

Now if a user provides new information about a business they know -- or if our system identifies information from another source on the web that may be more recent than the data the business owner provided via Google Places -- the organic listing will automatically be updated
by Lior Ron, Google Places Product Manager

This should make our service even more valuable , Google is an automated system that will take data on a business from other sources on the web and add it on the Google place page for the business, simply because if it feels that it is more "recent". Even when its owner verified WOW , With our service we are looking out for the business owner and making sure that their information is accurate -Always.
By William Rivas ReviewBoost.com

full link ; http://googlesmb.blogspot.com/2011/10/faster-updates-to-local-business.html

Google's Step by Step Reputation Management Service Done by ReviewBoost.com

2011-10-03T16:20:00.000-07:00

ReviewBoost.com's service's explained on Google's Official blog link below:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/managing-your-reputation-through-search.html

Proactively publish information

Sometimes, however, you may not be able to get in touch with a site's webmaster, or they may refuse to take down the content in question. For example, if someone posts a negative review of your business on a restaurant review or consumer complaint site, that site might not be willing to remove the review. If you can't get the content removed from the original site, you probably won't be able to completely remove it from Google's search results, either. Instead, you can try to reduce its visibility in the search results by proactively publishing useful, positive information about yourself or your business. If you can get stuff that you want people to see to outperform the stuff you don't want them to see, you'll be able to reduce the amount of harm that that negative or embarrassing content can do to your reputation.

You can publish or encourage positive content in a variety of ways:

Create a Google profile. When people search for your name, Google can display a link to your Google profile in our search results and people can click through to see whatever information you choose to publish in your profile.
If a customer writes a negative review of your business, you could ask some of your other customers who are happy with your company to give a fuller picture of your business.
If a blogger is publishing unflattering photos of you, take some pictures you prefer and publish them in a blog post or two.
If a newspaper wrote an article about a court case that put you in a negative light, but which was subsequently ruled in your favor, you can ask them to update the article or publish a follow-up article about your exoneration. (This last one may seem far-fetched, but believe it or not, we've gotten multiple requests from people in this situation.)

Hope these tips have been helpful!

Google Chrome Commercial showing the importance of reviews for a successful business online to offline

2011-10-03T15:01:00.001-07:00

Small Business+Google Place Pages+Reviews is the backbone of America

Google goes retail in London but before that was...

2011-10-03T14:58:00.000-07:00

The Chrome Zone in US airports when they teamed up with Virgin Airlines below are some links. Making Google ChromeBooks easily available for users might just shift the PC audience a bit.

Geek.com's Story link:

http://www.geek.com/articles/news/google-opens-first-chromezone-store-in-london-2011103/

Venting Online, Consumers Can Find Themselves in Court

2011-10-03T14:09:00.000-07:00

This is such an interesting story of how things can get out of hand and expensive with a back and forth. ReviewBoost has a stance that consumers have the right to express their sentiments of a business good or bad online. And a business has the same right to defend their name and promote the positive online, the same you could do in the offline world.

K'zoo residents complain of T&J Towing: woodtv.com

Here is the link from the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/us/01slapp.html

Rich Snippets Introduced to show reviews on search results

2011-10-03T11:51:00.000-07:00

Introducing Rich Snippets - Google Blog link :http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/05/introducing-rich-snippets.html

This is a huge plus for our company and the ability to promote reviews on the serp's

If a Customer leaves your site to look for reviews chances are they wont come back CNN Money Reports

2011-09-26T14:09:00.000-07:00

Even bad reviews boost sales

Think letting customers post cranky reviews of your products will scare away sales? Here's the surprising truth.

Here is the link ; http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/28/smallbusiness/retail_democracy.fsb/?postversion=2009092813

Can one person write over 25k Reviews Online?

2011-09-23T14:01:00.000-07:00

YES! they can here are some links on this amazing woman Harriet Klausner. She has been featured in the Washington Post , Time Magazine, and has her own wikipedia page.

Amazon link; http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AFVQZQ8PW0L/ref=cm_pdp_rev_all/183-8724575-5623655?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview
Washington Post Link; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/11/AR2009071100057.html

Erasing the Digital Past, THE Internet never forgets.

2011-09-08T15:35:00.000-07:00

As written in the New York Times

Just ask the New York City teacher who recently divorced his wife of five years. Drop his name into Google, and his ex-wife appears in pictures of vacations and Christmas parties. “It’s difficult when you’re trying to date and your ex is still in the picture, so to speak,” said the teacher, who didn’t want to make matters worse by having his name in a newspaper.

The same goes for Bryan, an advertising executive in New York City. He is an accomplished online marketer and New York University professor, but search his name, and one of the first Web results is a press release from the United States attorney’s office. Eight years earlier, he was charged with wrongfully receiving 9/11 grant money. “Even after all these years,” those links remained, said Bryan, who paid a $2,000 fine.

And then there is the Philadelphia physiologist who became unwittingly linked to a consumer advocacy site, when it listed him as a graduate of a distance learning school that was shut down. “I felt totally victimized because there was nothing I could do,” said the physiologist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want added attention. “My case load started to dry up.”

At first, some tried manipulating the Web results on their own, by doing things like manually deleting photos from Flickr, revising Facebook pages and asking bloggers to remove offending posts. But like a metastasized cancer, the incriminating data had embedded itself into the nether reaches of cyberspace, etched into archives, algorithms and a web of hyperlinks.

After failing to rid the negative sites on their own, most turned to a new breed of Web specialists known as online reputation managers, who offer to expunge negative posts, bury unfavorable search results and monitor a client’s virtual image.

Now when they perform a Web search of themselves, the negative links are harder to find. “It took a couple of months, but now when you Google my name, the negative sites are buried about six or seven pages in,” the physiologist said. “My clientele has dramatically improved, and when people call to make inquires, they always say they got my name from the Internet.”

The company he used, Reputation.com, is among a growing corps of online reputation managers that promise to make clients look better online. In an age when a person’s reputation is increasingly defined by Google, Facebook and Twitter, these services offer what is essentially an online makeover, improving how someone appears on the Internet, usually by spotlighting flattering features and concealing negative ones.

“The Internet has become the go-to resources to destroy someone’s life online, which in turn means their offline life gets turned upside, too,” said Michael Fertik, the chief executive of Reputation.com, which is in Redwood City, Calif., and is among the largest in this field. “We’ve reached a point where the Internet has become so complicated, vast and fast-paced, that people can’t control it by themselves anymore. They now need an army of technologists to back them up online.”

ONLINE image fixers are not entirely new. For years now, big corporations and those with financial stakes in their Web presence have employed handlers to edit their online reputation — often as part of the array of services offered by a large public relations firm, lawyers or image consultants.

During the economic collapse in 2008, Wall Street bankers hired online specialists to protect their good names. “Some of these bankers were paying upwards of $10,000 a month to try hide their names online as they began appearing in the press,” said one image manager in New York City, who would only speak on the condition of anonymity to protect his high-profile clients.

Celebrities, too, have employed reputation companies, to fend off hurtful gossip items and negative articles in the news media.

But as everyday people began living more of their lives online, whether it’s blogging about dinner or posting vacation photos on Facebook, the downside to oversharing online began to catch up.

“It’s been a relatively nascent industry for a while, but fast forward to today and it’s become more mainstream,” said Bryce Tom, the former director of online reputation management at Rubenstein Communications, a major public relations firm in New York. So mainstream, in fact, that Mr. Tom left the firm last year to start Metal Rabbit Media, a reputation management company.

Mr. Tom divides his clients into two camps: “reactive” clients, who want to remove a specific item from the Web, and “proactive” clients, who want to monitor their image. His clients are evenly split between the two.

continue to page 2 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/fashion/03reputation.html?pagewanted=2&_r=3

Original Review Company purchased by Google ZAGAT

2011-09-08T09:19:00.000-07:00

To think of a review company with out the internet is beyond my comprehension it makes me happy to see Google making such an acquisition of what i would consider the original reputation management company(offline).

Official link below
Official Google Blog: Google just got ZAGAT Rated!: Pretty cool for Zagat to get purchased by Google

Google Places app for iPhone adds review filters

2011-09-07T14:04:00.000-07:00

Filter search results on Google places by ratings and reviews.
Google places use to have this feature for computers and there was no app needed. However them adding it back to the iphone app could be a return of that feature( i hope) it is time saving to say the least for consumers.

Official link below:
Google Places Blog: Google Places app for iPhone adds filters, open ho...: We’ve added some nifty new features to the Google Places app for iPhone . Here’s a rundown: Filter search results by distance, rating and p...

Study on Negative Reviews More Powerful Than Ever Before

2011-08-31T12:01:00.000-07:00

So this study shows that 90% of online shoppers read reviews and trust them enough to make purchasing decisions. Great numbers from the Marketing Daily here is the official link;
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=157679&nid=130460

A new rich snippets format for music but what does that have to do with reviews?

2011-08-30T16:24:00.000-07:00

So we have been questioned by few of why we care about rich snippets for music, thats the great part about reviewboost.com we explore and attempt to understand all aspects of internet by researching studying different rich snippets that show in SERP's it can give us a better understanding of review snippets. Over all it give us an advantage, additionally no other local reputation management company has there own public display of reviews through an open directory.

Below is a link to Googles blog on the subject
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: A new rich snippets format for music: Webmaster level: All

Since we introduced Rich Snippets back in 2009, we’ve created rich snippet formats for a variety of different conte...

New Local Reputation Management 4.0 Press Release

2011-08-26T09:02:00.000-07:00

In late August we released another variation of our service seeing some major changes on Google Place Pages specifically with reviews we knew we needed to stay ahead of the curve.

official link below:
New Local Reputation Management 4.0 | PRLog

Search Google Place Pages out loud

2011-08-25T13:15:00.000-07:00

So a great feature for anyone to use, especially when your not the best at typing like me. Search Google Place Pages with your voice and even filter for reviews.

Below is the official link:

Google LatLong: Search Google Maps out loud: Tired of typing? Without using your keyboard, you can now talk into Google Maps to look for places and get directions. If you’re using a C...

Your World and Business in 3D, now in more languages

2011-08-24T23:14:00.000-07:00

Now here is a way to get involved with Google Maps and Earth you can help create and model your area and even your business!

Below is a link showing how its now being done internationally
Google LatLong: Your World in 3D, now in more languages: [Cross-posted from the Google SketchUp Blog ] Earlier this summer, we unveiled a new website called Your World in 3D to help introduce use...

Share Google Place Pages with Reviews, Shortly

2011-08-23T15:39:00.000-07:00

It is super convenient to be able to shorten a link with just one click I remember when you had to go to a separate site to do this. Google has made it even easier to share reviews on Google places with friends and family by shortening url links with a single click. Thank you (even though it wasn't done just to share reviews)

Below is the official:
Google LatLong: Just a Short URL away: A little over a year ago, we began testing a feature in Google Maps that automatically generated a Short URL (aka URL Shortner ) to link t...

Google Maps now available on 40+ new countries

2011-08-19T16:06:00.000-07:00

Its exciting to see that Google proactively pushes for Google Maps internationally. With an international presence it can help improve commerce and more selfishly the importance of ratings and reviews. On a side note building a Google office internationally is beyond what i can even imagine here is a video.

Below is the official link:
Google LatLong: Google Maps now available on 40+ new country domai...: Here at Google our goal is to make all the world’s information accessible and useful; providing relevant local data to each country has been...

Weather in Google Maps, O and other cool stuff

2011-08-18T23:11:00.000-07:00

Some people might ask whats the big deal about weather in Google Maps? Well here is the big deal already you have place pages in maps with reviews and addresses to local businesses, you can also get directions and real time traffic with street view. The more integration we all have with maps the more we will become dependent on it and thus making Google more of our daily routing

Official link from Google
Google LatLong: Rain or shine, see the weather in Google Maps: Whether you’re organizing a trip overseas or a picnic at a local park, knowing the weather forecast is a crucial part of the planning proc...

half a day without ripoff report

2011-08-09T17:55:00.000-07:00

So for half a day maybe a whole day, ripoff report was not online, it was amazing to see how many reputation management companies went as far as to take credit for this and the rumors of why it happened were funny. However here is the link below on the the official reason. This site like many others exist to showcase the negative which is there right we have decided to promote the positive to suppress negative sites, we are not saying there should not be negativity we want there to be a fair balance and assessment not one sided.

Ripoff Report Not Banned, But Removes Itself From Google’s Index

Inside Google's search discussion panel with some great minds

2011-08-07T19:12:00.000-07:00

This is a great video discussing the future of search and algo's. Its an hour and a half but well worth it to get to know the minds that help bring the search results to your computer. Its really fun to see that the panel still has allot of passion for what they do.

Here is the link to the official blog post
Official Google Blog: Inside Google's search office

Reviews on AdWords /GoogleBoost Reviews are now more important than ever for online advertising

2011-07-25T11:14:00.000-07:00

Below is a link to the official Google Blog explaining Adwords Express
Google Small Business: Making local online advertising easy with Google A...: "(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog , Inside AdWords, and Lat Long blogs.) Today, we're officially introducing AdWords Express , a fa..."

Here is a link to Google Boost from Googles Blog i like the name i wonder were they got the idea?
http://googlesmb.blogspot.com/search/label/Boost

The Ongoing Evolution of Place Pages by Google officially announcing removal of 3rd party reviews and snippets

2011-07-22T16:23:00.000-07:00

"you can expect more changes to come" in the final sentence from Google Product manager Avni Shah as he wrote a great blog post that really summed up the changes on Google places with regards to reviews and Google user ratings. When Google places shares there goals we should listen and here is what they describe as there long term vision; Beyond today’s transition, our long-term vision for local search includes:

Bringing you more personalized results when you search for local places -- because we understand that information from the people you know is most meaningful;
Integrating some of the great information that’s been buried on Place pages into your web search experience across all Google platforms;
Giving you more ways to rate, discover and share places you love faster and easier than ever, wherever you are, and on whichever device you choose.

Google LatLong: The Ongoing Evolution of Place Pages: "Making constant tweaks and adjustments to our user interfaces and overall user experience have always been the norm at Google, and you may ..."http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2011/07/ongoing-evolution-of-place-pages.html

How ratings and reviews work on Google Places by Google

2011-07-20T10:53:00.000-07:00

This is a great blog post by Google on how reviews work it touches on Where reviews appear, How we handle reviews, How to flag or respond to reviews with additional links to review guidelines and how to engage reviews, awesome!

Google LatLong: How ratings and reviews work on Google Places: "Ratings, reviews and recommendations play an important role in helping people find great places they love. Now that Google Hotpot is availa..."

reputation managers will be the equivalent of companies that monitor or fix people’s credit- New York Times

2011-04-05T14:38:00.000-07:00

ReviewBoost.com is under Intravas Tech Corp in San Diego CA (Carlsbad to be exact) since 2007 since than we have seen 100's of reputation management companies come and go promising this and that we have steady the course and have always offered three packages and have never raised our pricing. All of our reps and vendors are located in the USA. When we read an article discussing the growth of an industry we spearheaded its interesting to see outsiders thoughts of our business. Here is the link; http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/the-growing-business-of-online-reputation-management/

Elements Website ReviewBoost.com Audio Commercial

2011-03-02T12:52:00.000-08:00

ReviewBoost by ReviewBoost.com

Intro from our ReviewBoostElements.com site great to listen over and over

How to rank on Google Place Pages - by Google directly

2011-02-02T13:15:00.000-08:00

How Local Search Ranking Works

Friday, December 3, 2010 at 9:05 AM

We’ve been quite busy this year working on Google Places, Tags, Boost, and our shiny new addition: Hotpot. With so many different products and features now available for local businesses, we wanted to take a step back and explain how the ranking of local listings works when people search on Google and Google Maps.

Product Manager Jeremy Sussman takes us under the hood in this informative video. Below are a few key takeaways, but we encourage you to watch the video, which features helpful examples and visuals.

Local search ranking refers to the placement and order of local information on a Google or Google Maps organic search results page. There are a variety of factors we take into account to provide you with results that match your local search, and three of the primary signals are relevance, prominence and distance. The best way to help potential customers connect with your business is to ensure that your basic company information like its name, address and phone number, are accurate, and then to add rich details like photos, hours of operation and more. You can do this by claiming and verifying your business via Google Places. However, claimed business listings do not receive any special ranking treatment over unclaimed business listings.

Google Tags and Boost are great online advertising solutions for local businesses. Tags make your organic business listings stand out on the Google and Google Maps search results page with a bright yellow marker that highlights specific attributes such as offers, videos or photos. And Boost is an effective complement to your organic Places listing because it quickly and easily creates an ad that can appear alongside the search results - giving your business additional exposure to people searching online. Neither of these advertising products available through your Google Places account affect the organic ranking of your business listing on Google or Google Maps.

Conversely, Hotpot - our new local recommendation engine based on ratings from you and your friends - can definitely affect the ranking of the local businesses you see in your organic search results. If you’re signed in to your Google account and have enabled Hotpot, you’ll get personalized recommendations based on the ratings you and your friends provided - making it easier for you to discover new places you’ll enjoy.

Posted by Brianna Brekke, Senior Strategist, Google Places

ReviewBoost.com To Launch "ELEMENTS"

2011-01-17T18:35:00.000-08:00

ReviewBoost.com to launch "ELEMENTS" on Tuesday 1-18-11 to provide business owners a full spectrum of internet reputation management products. The history of this change is from our company growth in 2010 first we moved our office to more than double the square footage and we are looking to move again in a few weeks to almost triple the square footage of 12k. We doubled our sales and business development staff to 24 members including two sales managers Andre R. and Chris D. also in 2010 we added a great addition in Matt H. now VP of Sales. We more than doubled our customer service department from 9 to 24 members led by two managers Jessica T. and Nick H. and restructured our operations to have two account managers per one business maximizing our services.

We had allot of exciting additions to Review Boost in 2010 but one that has to be noted in high regards is are revamping of our client relations team led by Brad M. and currently has 4 members to make sure all of our clients are excited to utilize our service. Our product growth has also been worth noting with our launch of myreviewboost.com designed by our product manager Ajay J. that helps business owners have a free directory listing and a hosted review platform with no advertisements. We have also had our growing pains in 2010 by locating nearly 30 new competitors in our space of reputation management. Many of which simply attempted to duplicate our service also known as imposter's of the original Review Boost service. Luckily innovation and customer service is what spawned ReviewBoost.com's success and is much harder to copycat. So thats leads us right in to Elements by Review Boost, we compiled 3 separate packages Core, Wellness, and Trinity each one holds its value however Trinity is now the most unique reputation management service offered to date by any company , ever.

Does your ONLINE Reputation Suck...? Are you sure... You better check and if it Does, You better know what to do!

2011-01-12T15:17:00.000-08:00

Does your ONLINE Reputation Suck...? Are you sure... You better check and if Does, You better know what to do!

OK... I know you all have heard about online reputation mangement...but it is VERY IMPORTANT!! I have clients and soon to be clients calling Dealer Synergy asking for HELP!!!! They say they are being attacked by "Internet Terrorists" I am dead serious, thats what a dealership told me the other day... You have to protect your online reputation. It is SOOOO Important, that I dedicated (FOR FREE) a portion of my site to show the community several of the major online reputation resources out there. But, I came across this resource recelty and I now have sevreal Dealer Synergy clients that are using this company. I have NO AFFILIATION with them at all. I am ONLy going by what I see personally and what my clients have told me their experieinces are and they are ALL positive... If you are getting CRUSHED by BAD reviews then you NEED to look into these people. They can FIX it... but its NOT enough to "wash away" the bad reviews... you need to have a strategy going forward to create a positive online reputation management protocol and integrity... This on the other hand is to help you out of a BAD situation. Here is a Quick Video from a client of mine, the President of Peruzzi Toyota talking about "Review Boost", Bill Finocchiaro

http://www.facebook.com/seanvbradley

Tags: Management, Online Reputation, Reputation,Review Boost, auto, automotive, car, car dealer, car folks, carfolks, More…

Yext Organizes The Anti-Google Local Advertising Alliance

2010-12-31T15:08:00.000-08:00

Yext Organizes The Anti-Google Local Advertising Alliance (Screenshots)

ERICK SCHONFELD

posted on December 29th, 2010

1 Comments

Google, as you may have heard, is making a big push into local advertising. It is currently offering $100 million in AdWords credits to new small businesses that sign up and promotes Google Places results for all local searches. Quite frankly, this is scaring the shit out of competitors like Citysearch, Yellowbook, SuperPages, WhitePages, and Yelp. They all rely on Google search results for people to find a good portion of their listings, and if Google displaces them collectively for local business listings, their businesses will be destroyed.

In local, Google is already a big snowball getting bigger and bigger. So how do they fight back? They enter into an anti-Google alliance, of course. The company organizing this alliance is Yext, a New York City startup which specializes in pay-per-call advertising for local businesses and dashboards to help them manage their reputations and listings online. On Monday, it will launch a new feature called “Tags” which will let small businesses highlight their names with a little tag and customizable message across about a dozen local listings sites. Launch partners for this “Tag Alliance” (I like my name better) will include MapQuest, Citysearch, Yellowbook, Local.com, SuperPages, White Pages, MerchantCircle, and Topix, with more to come.

If these tags sound familiar, it is because Google also offers similar sponsored tags to small businesses for $25 a month. Whenever a local business advertising with tags comes up in an organic search result or on Google Maps, a yellow tag with a line of text appears beneath its listing to help it stand out. Now, Yext is offering basically the same product across all the other major local search and listings sites on the Web for $99 a month per business location. Yext will end up splitting that 50/50 with its partners where the tags will appear. But from one dashboard (see first screenshot below), small businesses will be able to create tags, activate them across all the partner sites, and change them or take them down at will. And this is just the first step.

Since launching its reputation management system, Yext Rep, last May at TechCrunch Disrupt New York, the company has signed up 30,000 local businesses for the free product with no marketing. Tags will become a new tab/feature on Yext. Eventually, businesses should be able to update their tags not just on Yext but from any of the partner sites, and with one stroke update all of their tags universally across all the partner sites. And while it is starting with tags, Yext hopes to convince its partners to share more data and allow businesses to change their listing information or upload new photos in one place and see the changes replicated everywhere else.

Below is the Yext Tags dashboard page and a couple examples of what the tags look like on SuperPages and MapQuest:

No More TripAdvisor Reviews On Google

2010-12-10T14:21:00.000-08:00

Google Places blocked from using TripAdvisor reviews from tnooz.com

Here is the link: http://www.tnooz.com/2010/12/08/news/google-places-blocked-from-using-tripadvisor-reviews/

Google Place Page Reviews Power Search Results

2010-11-24T15:04:00.000-08:00

Discover Yours: Local recommendations powered by you and your friends

Monday, November 15, 2010 at 7:30 PM

There’s something so exciting about discovering new places. Nothing beats finding a great new place I’ve never been—whether it’s a new bakery with a special dessert, a hole-in-the-wall Mediterranean place I didn’t notice before or a local art gallery where I can let my imagination roam free.

The challenge with finding those great places is that each of us has different tastes. I want to find places I like and I want to find them quickly. So when I’m overwhelmed with possibilities, I turn to sources I can trust. For example, if I’m in a new city, I might chat with the concierge at my hotel and explain to him the kinds of places I like so he can give me personalized recommendations, or I’ll ask my friends for local recommendations because I value their opinions and we have similar tastes. But finding trusted advice is hard; wouldn’t it be great if there was a way for me to get these recommendations all the time, everywhere I go?

We are trying to do exactly that, and today we’re excited to share the first step: an early release of Hotpot - a local recommendation engine powered by you and your friends. With Hotpot, we’re making local search results for places on Google more personal, relevant and trustworthy. There are three main ingredients in the Hotpot recipe:

Google Places - These are the 50 million places around the world for which we have rich details.

The places you like - When you rate places you like, we’ll tell you about other related places you’ll love. I love my favorite neighborhood restaurant in Noe Valley, Firefly, so when I rate it 5 stars, Hotpot will try to recommend other places for me in the city with simple, homey food such as Home restaurant.

The places your friends like - Share your ratings with your friends and see the places they’ve recommended. I’m planning a trip to Barcelona for the holidays and my friend Bernardo is a local. With Hotpot, I can see his recommendations when planning my trip on Google Maps, or when I’m in Spain using Google Maps or Places for Android.

Combining these three ingredients makes the hard task of choosing where to go easy; all you need is to rate places and add your friends. To do that we created the Hotpot rating app: quickly rate all the places you’ve been to and choose exactly which friends you want to invite to Hotpot. Then, when you’re visiting places, you can continue rating on the go from Mobile maps on Android.

Rate from the Hotpot rating app

Rate from Mobile maps on Android

Your recommendations are with you whenever you need them. In search results, you can see recommended places by using the new Place Search and clicking on the “Places” filter. You can also see recommendations when searching on Google Maps, Google Maps for Android or when checking the Place pages for a specific business.

Recommendations on Place Search

Recommendations on a Place page

Recommendations on Google Maps for Android

You can set a Places nickname (here’s how) when you start using Hotpot, so you control how you post your ratings. That way, only your friends will be able to see your real name.

Happy hotpotting!

Posted by Lior Ron, Product Manager

Should Doctors get online Reviews?

2010-11-19T14:16:00.000-08:00

This is a CNBC video with a quick debate on Reviews for doctors online.
Here is the link http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=1653093696

Google Maps search results will include some of the phrases which are most frequently used in reviews

2010-10-30T15:46:00.000-07:00

Google's Blog explaining how reviews can help search results is a break through of information
http://googlesmb.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-descriptive-terms-in-local.html

Google's Place Search Now Available for over 50 million local businesses

2010-10-29T11:30:00.000-07:00

Google made a great push to really help users find their way through a local area with Google Place Pages Search here is a link to their blog announcing it ; http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/place-search-faster-easier-way-to-find.html

REVIEWING REVIEWS: HOW TO JUMP-START CUSTOMER FEEDBACK

2010-10-02T15:23:00.000-07:00

Submitted on 9/30/2010 by Gary Magnone

The importance for customer reviews in local search is nothing new. When it became well-known that reviews were making an impact in the search engines, business owners, along with their friends and families, started leaving reviews on their own listings, online reputation companies started syndicating reviews across the web, and agencies even began offering the service of writing false reviews for their clients. But with the continued rise in popularity of review sites around the world, businesses large and small began placing an even greater influence on not only the number of positive reviews, but the authenticity of those reviews as well.

For some businesses, acquiring genuine online reviews is easy. Restaurants, retail stores, bars & clubs, and hotels are all industries where customers are typically more inclined to leave thoughtful accounts of their experiences. However, some industries, like medical services, auto shops, public government services, financial institutions, and educational organizations are a bit more challenging to generate reviews from their customers. So if you find yourself in one of these industries where it’s very difficult to solicit your customers’ feedback, what can you do to stay competitive?

First, you can use the services of companies like ReviewBoost or DemandForce that automate the review solicitation process and syndicate these reviews to various review sites around the web. This method can be an easy way to generate more reviews, and some even integrate with your existing CRM software for a seamless transition. The only drawback that I can see to using these services, is that the reviews are shown as posted from a company account, not an actual personal account, even if the review was legitimately written by the customer. This can sometimes make a review appear less authentic, decreasing their impact on someone making a decision on trying your business.

Another tactic to propagate awareness of your business’ listing on review sites is to encourage and remind customers to sign up and leave their feedback. This strategy can be as simple as including a sentence or two with a link on receipts, fliers, or business cards handed to customers as they leave your location. You can also request free window decals from sites like Yelp to place around your business as well. Another good idea is to add a badge to your website that links to your business listing on the review site. Social media is also an excellent channel to highlight positive reviews and promote activity on your business’ listing on popular review sites.

There’s another approach that we’re seeing more and more of lately to generate more reviews, and that is incentivizing customers to leave their feedback. This method can be tricky because Yelp, for example, explicitly outlines that this practice is against their terms of service in order to keep reviews on their site as authentic and unbiased as possible. However, we still see many businesses offering freebies, running contests and giveaways, or even paying customers in exchange for their feedback on these review sites. In no way do I condone this type of action, but it is becoming increasingly common, and it can be difficult for review sites to automatically filter an incentivezed review from a non-incentivized one.

In my opinion, the most effective and inexpensive way to incite more reviews for your business is by simply asking for them. Use your website’s contact form “Thank You” page, order confirmation page, invoices, newsletters, and follow-up emails to provide customers with links to your listings on a couple of review sites. Most importantly, be transparent. Let customers know how valuable their feedback is to you and how crucial word of mouth is in your industry. Make your presence on review sites known, make leaving feedback easy, provide good, quality service, and the reviews will come.

We Will Match Your Donation

2010-09-27T12:44:00.000-07:00

We are ready to match donations

Reviews Can Improve Your Local Search Rankings – SEO Tip

2010-09-23T12:07:00.000-07:00

SEO Tip from BigOakInc.com on their Blog about ranking factors within Google here is their link
http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/reviews-improve-local-search-rankings/

Google: "how to respond to reviewers"

2010-08-13T15:25:00.000-07:00

Respond to reviews for your business on Google Place Page

Wednesday, August 4, 2010 at 7:15 AM

Whether you’re looking for a great lounge to hang out with your friends or a trusty shop to repair your bicycle, the web is a great place to discover and learn about local businesses and services. Some of the listings on Google Maps showcase reviews to help prospective customers make informed decisions and find the places that are just right for them. Reviews on Google Maps are assembled from a variety of sources on the web to give you the best possible overview of what people are saying about a specific place. We also encourage users to share their opinions by writing reviews directly on the Place Page of any place they’ve visited, be it a local business, tourist attraction or the like.

Starting today, if you’re a verified Google Places business owner, you can publicly respond to reviews written by Google Maps users on the Place Page for your business. Engaging with the people who have shared their thoughts about your business is a great way to get to know your customers and find out more. Both positive and negative feedback can be good for your business and help it grow (even though it’s sometimes hard to hear). By responding, you can build stronger relationships with existing and prospective customers. For example, a thoughtful response acknowledging a problem and offering a solution can often turn a customer who had an initially negative experience into a raving supporter. A simple thank you or a personal message can further reinforce a positive experience. Ultimately, business owner responses give you the opportunity to learn what you do well, what you can do better, and show your customers that you’re listening.

Before writing your first response, we recommend reading our handy tips on how to respond to reviewers. Then take a stab at responding by following these instructions. If you have not yet verified ownership for your business on Google, please visit Google Places to claim your listing.

Posted by John Maguire, Google Place Page team

New ReviewBoost.com Video Commercial (old skool)

2010-07-23T16:07:00.000-07:00

This is super old however people are still trying to copy our style

Hooters Names Review Boost Company of the Month

2010-07-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

Pretty Cool! wish we would have won some free wings with it

Business owners are also disturbed that some negative reviews are written by paid Yelp employees. - East Bay Express

2010-07-21T14:54:00.000-07:00

And to this day, Yelp hires "Scouts" or "Ambassadors" to write reviews In some cases, businesses that received negative reviews from paid Yelpers were also asked to advertise. San Francisco's Elite Cafe, which advertises with Yelp, received a two-star review by a paid Yelp ambassador, as did Anabelle's Bar and Bistro. In both instances, the negative reviews appeared after Yelp sales staff asked them to advertise. Both business owners were unaware that a paid Yelper had written a negative review of their business.
EastBayExpress.com Shares their findings on Yelp as they see it, below is the official link
ReviewBoost.com has no affiliation with Yelp or EastBayExpress
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/gyrobase/yelp-and-the-business-of-extortion-20/Content?oid=1176635&showFullText=true

ReviewBoost Story with Google Search Stories

2010-06-29T14:25:00.001-07:00

Watch The ReviewBoost Story on Google Search Stories

Help Us With Google Boost

2010-05-18T15:13:00.000-07:00

here is a form to fill out and help push the Boost Movement : https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dDl3dE1oRFFLTXJkYV8wVnNjSGJmR1E6MA&ndplr=1

Local business reviews are a form of social media -- possibly the most important form of social media for brands with a local business model.

2010-04-21T15:28:00.000-07:00

How to protect your brand from bad business reviews by Tom Crandall

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/26468.asp

Google's Product Review's Program

2010-04-16T14:40:00.000-07:00

Increase traffic and exposure through the Google Product Reviews Program

If you already submit your product data to Google, you know it’s a great way to get free, qualified traffic through enhanced ad formats and Google Product Search. Now, through the Google Product Reviews Program, we’d like to help you leverage your high-quality user reviews and ratings to attract more customers, by surfacing this content wherever it’s relevant for shoppers on Google, including our search results and our advertising programs. On Google Product Search, for example, we’ll feature your logo alongside representative reviews from your site, increasing brand exposure for your web store at a key point in the conversion process.

Ready to participate? The first step is to work with your webmaster to make sure you’ve specified your canonical URLs for products in your web store. Next, if you’re a client of one of the reviews platform providers listed below, all you need to do is contact them and let them know you’d like to submit your user reviews to Google. If not, we’ll be adding more platforms soon, as well as a process for submitting reviews directly to Google. In the meantime, remember to specify canonical URLs for your website so you’ll be ready to participate.

Bazaarvoice enables the world's largest brands to capture, display, share, and analyze customer conversations online. An industry-leading combination of technology and personalized services provided by Bazaarvoice helps brands build online communities that drive measureable business goals. Bazaarvoice has served over 125 billion consumer ratings, reviews, questions, answers, and stories about products and brands on client websites for leading manufacturing, retail, travel, and financial services companies. Bazaarvoice is a leading choice for Internet Retailer 500 retailers.

PowerReviews is a leading provider of social commerce solutions to retailers and brands, powering a network of over 3500 websites. The company's patented approach to structuring and analyzing user-generated content significantly boosts product sales, drives traffic, and increases customer engagement. PowerReviews works with clients to develop a customized social commerce strategy that maximizes and accelerates the impact of user-generated content throughout the entire organization.

There are 1000s of local business review sites and directories,

2010-03-31T10:50:00.000-07:00

Level Ten Interactive did a great job in there post really explaining the value of review sites across the internet
here is there link http://www.leveltendesign.com/blog/neil/7-local-business-review-sites-capturing-your-customers%E2%80%99-attention

Google improves search results by aggregating information about your business from all over the web including reviews

2010-03-10T11:30:00.000-08:00

Google gives 3 points on how you can help users/customers find your business online on the 3rd point

3. Establish a strong, accurate presence on the web.

Google improves search results by aggregating information about your business from all over the web. Make sure information about your business on third-party sites is accurate, and try to contact the respective site directly to correct any inaccurate information.
Encourage customers to review your business by clicking Write a review on the Place page.

This is the main service of ReviewBoost.com is to have customers review your business online , when we specifically talk about the Google Place Page Review Section, Google states that they look at other data through out the web to help determine factors of search results but as shown in the point above Google factors in reviews to establish a good presence online.
Here is the official Google link:
http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=148047&rd=1

Auto dealership demands comments be removed from social sites

2010-03-04T14:21:00.000-08:00

Threatening legal action against customers for writing unfavorable remarks about a business online, hmm not such a good idea. At ReviewBoost we believe this can actually bring more unwanted negative attention to a business, we are strong advocates of having happy customers promote their thoughts online to overtake the negative. Below is the link to the story by Russ Lemon.
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2009/dec/16/russ-lemmon-auto-dealership-demands-comments-be/?partner=popular

AT&T To Launch Yelp Competitor - Forbes.com Reports

2010-01-27T15:09:00.000-08:00

AT&T latched on early to the local search and advertising market, first with the Yellow Pages, then with an online version, YellowPages.com. These days, with everyone from Google to Yelp chasing the same business, AT&T is striking back with a new social recommendations site called buzz.com
We have a Beta account here is the link; http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/26/att-yelp-advertising-technology-business-intelligence-buzz.html?boxes=Homepagechannels

SEO tactics. Not only does any review boost your off-page SEO, they also provide you with further insight ....

2010-01-15T14:46:00.000-08:00

SEO Consult has a great article on how reviews can help with SEO especially off page here is the link ;
http://www.seoconsult.com/seoblog/cheap-seo/negative-reviews-positive-seo.html

Google added a new feature to let users rank characteristics and services of businesses on their Place Pages, which already offer reviews.

2009-12-24T14:20:00.000-08:00

This change was great gave specific snippets on characteristics for businesses including atmosphere here is the link from googlewatch.eweek.com ; http://googlewatch.eweek.com/content/google_maps/google_maps_place_pages_joins_bing_yahoo_with_local_ratings.html

80%+ say their purchase decisions have been directly influenced by reviews.

2009-12-20T14:09:00.000-08:00

Searchenginejournal.com Article by Garrett Pierson was truly inspirational here is the link with great data;
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/5-ways-to-end-2009-with-a-bang/15548/

Local Business Overreacts to Mediocre Yelp Review, or did they?

2009-12-17T15:11:00.000-08:00

as seen on sfist.com , is a story of how online reviews affect consumer relationships in the offline world here is the link http://sfist.com/2009/08/23/local_business_overreacts_to_medioc.php

69 percent of consumers who read reviews share them with friends, family or colleagues.

2009-11-24T15:17:00.000-08:00

here is a great link from smallbiztechnology.com about importance of reviews; http://smallbiztechnology.com/archive/2009/11/50-of-online-biz-say-product-r.html/

Using Product Reviews to Boost Subscriber Engagement & Conversions - From the Bronto Blog archives

2009-11-19T10:22:00.000-08:00

ReviewBoost knows the importance of a strong and healthy online reputation however individuals in eCommerce and product sales still have there worries. This article has some great information here is the link below:
http://bronto.com/blog/email-marketing-strategy/using-product-reviews-boost-subscriber-engagement-conversions#.TqWeMd7iE8l

Should You Sue for a Nasty Online Review? written by The Wall Street Journal

2009-11-18T10:56:00.000-08:00

This article is great resource on the early days of legal actions against bloggers and reviewers. ReviewBoost.com takes the same stand as Google does when it comes to online reputation management by simply promoting the positive content to combat the negative. Here is the link; http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet/2007/10/09/should-you-sue-for-a-nasty-online-review/

Here is a link to a more recent story affecting one of our clients as they decided to fight back with legal force.
Just to clarify on the report it states we "post" reviews we actually survey and promote reviews on the web. We also did not endorse legal action.
http://special.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/26517953-41/neumann-law-benton-business-lawsuits.html.csp

User Reviews and Small Businesses blog post by Matt McGee from 2006!

2009-10-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

Here is one of the earliest links we can find discussing reviews and business on the internet ;
http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/user-reviews-and-small-businesses/214/

Search Engines Say OK to Pay-per-Post Services as seen on SEOMOZ Blog

2009-10-22T13:39:00.000-07:00

Tim answered first and said that Yahoo! wouldn't try to pick one post out of twenty or fifty on every blog that might be running advertorials or paid reviews just to stop link value from that particular post. If the engine looked at the site and saw that in general, the outgoing links were of high quality, there would be no discount of link value for paid blog material.

here is the link ; http://www.seomoz.org/blog/search-engines-say-ok-to-payperpost-services

Why Customer Product Reviews Boost Online Sales by Dr. Ralph Wilson

2009-10-10T16:01:00.000-07:00

Here is a nifty link to learn more about reviewers and "social searchers"
http://www.wilsonweb.com/conversion/wilson-product-reviews.htm

How to handle Reviews of your business by David Ingram on Search Engine Land

2009-10-10T14:30:00.000-07:00

These tips are basic for some but undoubtedly the fundamentals to doing your own business reputation management.

What is a Review Site? And what about Anonymity?

2009-10-08T14:26:00.000-07:00

A review site is a website on which reviews can be posted about people, businesses, products, or services.
Here is the link to the official Wikipedia definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Review_site

Take control of your online reviews

2009-10-08T10:18:00.000-07:00

This is a site that helps Chiropractors market there business online but these basic 10 steps can really help any business and should be easy to do http://www.chiropractor2web.com/chiropractic-marketing-tips/

Just how important are online reviews in the minds of buyers?

2009-10-07T15:30:00.000-07:00

Very few webmasters and SEO companies see the importance of online reviews and reputation management online. However some do here is an awesome link to a group that really see the importance of reviews.
http://www.localna8ion.com/online-reviews-what-to-do-about-themconsumers/

Los Angeles Times; Good, Cheap Marketing with reviews of your business

2009-09-23T05:00:00.000-07:00

start by asking clients to provide testimonials or write reviews of your business online. "If you're proud of what your business is offering, you'll want to help others take advantage of your good service or product"
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jul/07/business/fi-inbox7

5 star Business Reviews: How To Get Them explained by VisOnTheNet

2009-09-17T14:39:00.000-07:00

Bob from VisOnTheNet explains his thoughts on obtaining and ranking with Reviews on your Google pace page and beyond , Great Stuff here is the Official link ; http://www.visonthenet.com/5-star-business-reviews-how-to-get-them-255.html

MySpace to launch local business site for reviews - Fox News Reports

2009-09-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

Really cool to see everyone trying to push for consumer sentiment online.
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_wires/2009Mar31/0,4675,TECTechBitMySpaceCitySearch,00.html

Businesses turn to online reviews to grow clientele Up to 80% of new business

2009-09-15T18:00:00.000-07:00

This article was great motivation for ReviewBoost.com seeing a business be so proactive to about there reviews and reputation online really gave us allot of confidence.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/services/2008-05-20-online-reviews_N.htm

Where Does Google Find Reviews?

2009-09-14T09:30:00.000-07:00

This is a great post written on a Beauty Salon Marketing site in the UK. It gives some tips that can be used by anyone attempting to promote there business online.
http://www.beauty-salon-marketing.co.uk/salon-internet-marketing-where-does-google-find-reviews

Video Reviews Now Part of Google Product Search by Search Engine Journal

2009-09-10T10:44:00.000-07:00

Video reviews have been a part of ReviewBoost.com service for many years and when seeing Google add it to there product search we stop and wonder what if they added it to other services like Google Place Pages?
here is the link to SEJ article; http://www.searchenginejournal.com/youtube-video-reviews-now-part-of-google-product-search/13130/

Upside Of Bad Online Customer Reviews - Forbes.com Article

2009-08-27T14:10:00.000-07:00

At ReviewBoost.com we dont feel that there shouldnt be any bad reviews what we do believe is that there be a real and honest balance of opinion. Here is a link that shows some light on negative reviews.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/04/bad-customer-reviews-entrepreneurs-management-ebags.html

Google's Patent On Reviews and Reputation

2009-08-19T12:40:00.000-07:00

Written by Bill Slawski on SEO by The Sea From 2007

http://www.seobythesea.com/2007/04/google-reviews-reputation-quality-snippets-clustering/

A mix of reputation scores and quality scores may determine which reviews are used to rank products and merchants and businesses and which are shown to people interested in reviews. The patents also describe how snippets are chosen, and how reviews may be clustered together. I’m going to focus upon the quality scores of reviews with this post, which I think are the most accessible and interesting aspects of these patent applications.

Quality Scores

Reviews for a subject are identified, but not all of them may be shown. identified reviews is selected based on predefined quality criteria. The selection may also be based on zero or more other predefined criteria. A response that includes content from the selected reviews is generated. The content may include the full content or snippets of at least some of the selected reviews.

Based upon the quality of the content of the review, these scores enable reviews to be compared against each other. A number of pre-defined factors may be looked at to calculate these scores, such as:

Grammatical quality of the review,
Length of the review,
Lengths of sentences in the review,
Values associated with words in the review,
Age of review
Review sources, and;
Objectionable content.

Grammatical Quality:

Reviews using proper grammar and capitalization are favored (they are more readable).

In addition to looking for things like periods in the review, to see if sentences are being used, some additional indications of grammatical quality might be looked for, such as:

Subject-verb agreement,
Absence of run-on sentences or fragments, and;
so forth.

A grammar checker might be used.

Length of the review

Too short, and a review is uninformative. Too long, and the review isn’t as readable as a shorter one. Might be measured by looking at:

Word Count
Character Count
Sentence Count

Could be based upon a difference between the length of the review and a predefined “optimal” review length.

Sentence Length

A preference for reasonable lengthed sentences rather than extremely long or extremely short sentences. This score could be based upon the difference between the lengths of sentences in a review, and some predefined “optimal” sentence length.

Values associated with words in a review – frequencies and dictionaries

If you look through the reviews at Froogle, you’ll notice that you can look at reviews which use “Frequently mentioned terms.” The terms used in reviews are looked at carefully. Reviews with high value words are favored over reviews with low value words.

Word values could be based on the inverse document frequency (IDF) values associated with the words, with high IDF values considered to be more “valuable.”

Take the number of reviews, and divide it by the number of reviews where the word occurs at least once, and that will tell you the IDF (Inverse Document Frequency) of the word.

Instead of calculating an IDF based upon all of the collected reviews, the IDF might be based upon the number of reviews in different subject types based upon the thought that “words that are valuable in reviews for one subject type may not be as valuable in reviews for another subject type.” This number may be used along with the number of times a word appears within the individual review (a term frequency) to calcuate a score for the review based upon the value of the word.

Word values could also be determined by looking at a predefined dictionary of words that are deemed valuable in a reviews context. There could be different dictionaries for different subject types.

A score could be calculated by the number of times that words from the predefined dictionary are included within the review.

Age of Review

The age of a review might be considered in the quality score. Newer reviews might be favored as being reflective of more recent experience with the review subject.

Review Sources

The sources of reviews may play a role in which reviews are presented.

While reviews are selected based upon quality scores, they could be chosen from all of the sources or on a per source basis. Instead of looking at all reviews, a number of the highest scoring from each source might be chosen instead.

Objectionable content

Offensive or objectionable content might be defined beforehand in a dictionary, and reviews that content profanity or sexually explicit language could be eliminated from consideration for selection.

Reputation Scores

Reputation scoring is described in an analogy to PageRank, and a couple of passages in that patent and one of the images provide a glimpse of how this might work:

Reputations are distributed among raters and their reviews. Preferably, raters in the system who write reviews which are rated highly by a number of raters should have good reputations and raters who write reviews that are rated poorly by other raters should have poor reputations.
Spammers
However, spammers may attack the system in various ways. Some may flood the system in an attempt to increase their own reputations while others may attempt to lower the reputations of their competitors or enemies.
One technique to address this concern provides for the reputation score of a rater who writes well rated reviews to also depend on the reputation of the raters who rated their reviews highly. Similarly, a rater who writes reviews that are poorly rated should not be penalized as much if the poor reviews come from raters with low reputation as if they come from those with strong reputations.

I found this flowchart helpful in understanding this reputation scoring process as well:

Snippets

The decision making process of what snippets to show is interesting, and makes me wonder how similar it might be to the process of showing snippets in the presentation of search results in Google’s web search.

The whole content of a review, or just a snippet may be presented to people looking at reviews.

Quality scores for each sentence of a review may be determined, and that process is similar to the quality scoring for the whole review that I described above. The position of the sentence in the review may also be considered, with sentences in the beginning of the review being favored. It’s possible that more than one sentence will be shown, and the patent discusses how additional consecutive sentences might be added, while remaining within the ideal (or maximum) snippet length.

Conclusion

The description text in the last four patent applications is pretty much the same from one to the other, but the claims listed and the summaries are different. If you want to go through those carefully, it can help to look around at how reviews are used in Froogle for a while first, so that you have some idea of the kinds of things that they are describing.

The exact processes described in these patent applications may differ from what is actually being used in Froogle, but the ideas behind some of them may be helpful in understanding how reviews can be identified and ranked and excluded.

It’s hard to tell if the processes involved in these patent applications are used for reviews in Google Maps, but the ideas of reputation and quality scores might be, as well as how snippets are created for those reviews.

Doctors barring patients from posting bad reviews online- from Fierce Healthcare Online

2009-08-14T14:16:00.000-07:00

Asking a customer/patient to sign something not to write a review or rating online can make things worse however here is a link that discusses ratemds.com and Medical Justice;
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/doctors-barring-patients-posting-bad-reviews-online/2009-03-04

Survey of over 100,000 small business and retail customers nationwide

2009-05-05T12:54:00.000-07:00

Start Up Nations Blog shows the top 5 points to help satisfy your customers.

Here is there official link http://www.startupnation.com/business-articles/1103/1/AT_What-Customers-Want.asp

With today’s cutthroat competition from big business, trying to compete on price can be a quick road to ruin for a startup company. But here’s a little secret you should know: contrary to common perception, customers will not go almost anywhere just to save a buck.

So if you want to avoid getting beat up on price, stop trying to compete on price alone. What your business needs to stand out is better customer service and satisfied customers . But don’t make it the simple “please and thank you” variety. Aim higher. Strive for fabulous, standout, outrageously great service to set your startup business apart from the crowd.

Will superior service trump price? Absolutely, says a dramatic new survey of over 100,000 small business and retail customers nationwide. According to a four-year study conducted by the Ohio-based market intelligence firm BIGresearch, most customers will put service ahead of price - if you give them the chance.

Entrenched “wisdom” may be wrong

BIGresearch asked tens of thousands of shoppers how they like to shop, what they look for in customer service and what it takes for them to buy. And according to T. Scott Gross, who turned the results into a new book called “When Customers Talk,” some of the most deeply entrenched “wisdom” about what customers want may simply be wrong.

For example, when researchers asked customers how far they’d be willing to drive for excellent service , 80 percent said they’d travel four or more miles, and nearly half said they would drive 10 miles or more for the right combination of price, quality and customer service.

“American shoppers are not the finicky, price-conscious bargain hunters they have been made out to be,” says Gross. “Consumers will pay for good service with both their cash and their time.”

Your job as startup entrepreneur is to deliver superior service that attracts and keeps customers day in and day out. Satisfied customers say they are willing to drive a little further for great service, but you’d better make it worth their effort.

Just how many service slipups does it take to send a customer packing? According to the BIGresearch survey, 17 percent will bolt after a single service faux pas. Another 40 percent will jump ship after two instances of poor service, and 28 percent more are out the door after three. So for 85 percent of your customers, it’s three strikes and you’re out.

Fair enough. But what do buyers really want from you?

What keeps customers satisfied

Knowledgeable and available staff : While a customer is making the buying decision, they want knowledgeable assistance, available when they want it . Customers place a high value on accurate information and want to be served by employees who know the product inside and out.
Friendly people: Customers not only want product-savvy sales people, they want them to be friendly and courteous. Your staff should value each customer more than any individual sale.
Good value: This is where price factors in. But customers surveyed see price as only one component of the bigger picture of “value” that includes the service, information and follow-up they also receive.
Convenience: The service rule here is simple: make it easy! Says Gross, “Customers want merchandise that is well organized, attractively displayed and easy to find. That’s how today’s customers define convenience, and the easier you can make the shopping, the more money you will be lugging to the bank.”
A fast finish: This final item is where too many businesses fall flat, right at the finish line. While customers are in the process of deciding to buy or not, they are proceeding on your time. They want thoughtful help making the right decisions. But once the buying decision is made, get out of their way because now you are working on their time, and they want to complete the transaction and be on their way as quickly as possible. At the cash register, there is no time for making additional suggestions.

Our Bottom Line

In the end, it may be your service - not your price - that dictates whether or not you secure customers for the long term. If you give people what they want, the way they want it and follow through with a fast finish when it comes time to pay up, you are much more likely to turn them into satisfied customers.

84% of Americans say online customer evaluations influence their decisions about whether to purchase products or services

2009-04-17T10:15:00.000-07:00

InformationWeek's article on the importance of onlince reviews by the numbers great stat's here is the official link; http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/ebusiness/216500868

update: this link below also from InformationWeek talks about Googles Tips for Burying bad reviews and Ugly Search Results

Yelp user faces lawsuit over review - SF Gate

2009-01-10T09:53:00.000-08:00

Writing a review should not be censored but who decides the balance between an attack and a honest opinion online? This articles shows both sides and it all comes down to reputation. Here is the official link; http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/07/MNN81559L2.DTL&type=business&tsp=1

respondents said they would be dissuaded from buying a product after reading just two negative reviews and 75 per cent of respondents would be deterred from buying after reading three bad reviews

2008-09-26T15:25:00.000-07:00

The value of online reviews for shoppers by imediaconnection

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/20508.asp

Yahoo explains how to get reviews from your business

2008-09-09T16:01:00.000-07:00

its easy! http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/smallbusiness/promotion/links/links-09.html

Official Google Mobile Blog: Rate and Review Businesses from Your Phone

2008-08-31T15:56:00.000-07:00

Official Google Mobile Blog: Rate and Review Businesses from Your Phone: Last Saturday I had dinner at a hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese restaurant in San Francisco's Richmond District. While it didn't look like much...

Add your reviews to businesses on Google Maps Original Blog Post by Google back back in 2007

2008-07-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

Google in 2007 offered the option to add your reviews for local business on Google Maps also known at that time as Google Local, remember Goog-411?
Here is the link; http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/06/add-your-reviews-to-businesses-on.html

allBusiness.com article- Online reviews, whether good or bad, are always a positive

2008-04-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

This stat jumps right off the page, 91% of consumers rank user content as the number one aid to a purchase decision. Here is the official link ; http://www.allbusiness.com/company-activities-management/product-management-branding/11960481-1.html

Only 25 percent of online retailers have incorporated customer reviews

2008-01-19T14:15:00.000-08:00

The Ecommerce guide has a great article on online reviews importance to online businesses that can easily translate to local businesses listed on Google Maps here is the link;
http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/news/trends/article.php/3705711

78% of online consumers have more trust for brands with reviews - BazaarVoice Blog

2007-10-16T13:18:00.000-07:00

Some great stats on reviews, brands, and company perceptions here is the link; http://www.bazaarvoice.com/blog/2007/06/26/78-of-online-consumers-have-more-trust-for-brands-with-reviews/