The growing importance of reputation management in business growth needs no introduction. If you want a single statistic to showcase why every business person and their dog encourages great reviews more than ever, it’s this: 85 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. That statistic is from a recent piece of […]
Google’s growth in online local reviews continues to dominate, but… Read More »
Over the past decade, Google has continued to increase the amount of personal data they collect from people querying information or supplying data to them. A story on Quartz brought this practice to light last year when a researcher discovered Google tracking location information from Android devices even if they have location services disabled: Since the
Why entities may power the future of location-based data Read More »
In early 2017, Yelp bought a Canadian company called Turnstyle Analytics, which provides free WiFi and email marketing services to local businesses. The company helps local businesses build lists and remarket to customers; it also has online-to-offline matching and attribution capabilities. Turnstyle was renamed Yelp WiFi and recently completed an offline attribution test with Canadian restaurant
Yelp tests offline attribution using guest WiFi and email matching Read More »
According to a report appearing in Reuters, Google’s parent Alphabet is considering a sale of reviews publication Zagat. The company was purchased in September, 2011 for a reported $151 million in the wake of a failed deal to acquire Yelp. At the time Google needed local reviews content to better compete in local search with
Google exploring sale of Zagat reviews Read More »
Google is integrating third-party reviews into the Knowledge Graph for hotels. It apparently has been happening since 2016 and is entirely opt-in for the provider. Google works directly with the third-party review source (e.g., TripAdvisor) to integrate the content. In the example below, TripAdvisor reviews for Southern California hotel Terranea are available under the “view Google
Google again showing third-party reviews in local results Read More »
Last month, Yelp doubled down on its war on review solicitation. Yelp has long given mixed signals about whether you can ask customers for reviews on their platform, but they seem to now be unifying their message against review solicitation. In November, they began sending messages like this to businesses and agencies: Disclosure: We (Go
3 inconsistencies in Yelp’s review solicitation crackdown Read More »
Consumers overwhelmingly expect the reviews they peruse on Amazon, Yelp, Google and other review sites to be trustworthy, neutral and objective. But this reasonable expectation is frequently thwarted by the efforts of aggressive marketers who pay third parties to create phony reviews in exchange for compensation or incentivize existing good customers to leave reviews with
Coming to terms with fake reviews Read More »
As reviews have become more important (to consumers and as a local ranking factor), multiple companies have emerged to monitor reviews, but also to help small business owners obtain them. Yelp is trying to stop many of those efforts. We were provided with the following, received by one of these reputation management companies: Yelp is,
Yelp increasingly cracking down on ‘review solicitation’ across the internet Read More »
Business listings with more content see more engagement, tend to rank higher and perform better overall. And as more searches take place on mobile devices (and eventually smart speakers and virtual assistants), marketers will need to expose more local business attributes and enhanced data for discovery and competitive advantage. According to previous Google research, 50
Yext begins to verticalize local business listings syndication with ‘Yext for Food’ Read More »
Mark Van Scyoc / Shutterstock.com Yelp has sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asserting that Google is improperly using Yelp images in local search results in violation of its 2013 antitrust settlement with the regulatory agency. Yelp also circulated the letter to several members of Congress and state attorneys general, according to a
Yelp says Google violated ‘do not crawl’ provision of 2013 FTC settlement agreement Read More »
