Some people are lucky, and some people aren’t. Here’s an unlucky person I ran across today. He’s simply known as Robert, and his problems revolve around the keys and locks in his life. As Google will tell you, he’s one hell of an unlucky person who finds himself in need of a good locksmith regularly.
On November 27, 2008, Robert started sharing his history of bad luck with keys, locks and the locksmiths he loves working with. His soapbox: online reviews. Let’s take a look. His problems all took place in Arizona, all ten of them. Here’s a few below:
If that wasn’t enough, just about a week later Robert had more problems with his keys and locks, and more locksmiths to provide feedback on. All the reviews were good, just like the one’s in Arizona. All of the reviews point to another string of bad luck in Seattle. Twenty-eight reviews of locksmiths were all added on December 5th. Here’s a few of the reviews:
Robert has had some really bad luck with keys and locks. But, he’s had great luck with locksmiths apparently. Every one he’s worked with he’s given a five-star rating.
Okay, everyone’s figured it out by now (I hope). There’s obviously something wrong with this user profile. And, in reality, there probably is no “Robert,” so who cares about his reviews on Google.
Well, the reviews actually play a part in a bigger scheme. Who cares about these reviews? Google’s Local algorithm, and the spammers know it. These reviews, and many, many others point to scores of sites that appear to be (to Google at least) different, individual local businesses.
In reality, they are not. They are lead aggregators or call centers that are reselling leads to the locksmiths that perform the actual work.
Here’s what the Google results looks like to a consumer doing a search on Google for “Phoenix emergency locksmith”. Note the local listings specifically (the ten listings accompanied by the map).
They all look pretty similar, don’t they? The only thing that is different is the phone number and web site addresses. The local listings all point to one (or a handful) of companies that are aggregating leads and reselling them to locksmiths.
Leveraging fabricated user reviews are a part of how the lead aggregation companies can secure all, or most, of the local listings Google suggests.
The average search engine user likely never sees the reviews either. You don’t see them unless you click on the link that states the number of reviews. If you do so, and then take a look at the reviewers themselves and see all the reviews that an individual made, the fake profiles and reviews are easy to spot.
If you look back at the reviews we’ve been talking about, the clearest indicator is that “Robert” is reusing the same reviews over and over again. He also signs a few reviews as “Nicole.”
Upon doing a quick web search you can find the reviews repeated again, and again, and again. Different users, different listings, same exact review. Here’s an example. I searched Google for the phrase “He was quick and did not try to sell us stuff we did not need,” a phrase used in one of Robert’s reviews. It returned 105 results. All reviews.
That path I went down to demonstrate this was easy. I’m not bringing anything to light that online marketers haven’t seen in one form or another. It’s been known for quite some time that the local listings for many trades (including locksmiths) are dominated by lead resellers who are taking advantage of the simplistic, under-developed algorithms that rank local search results.
Chris Johnson, Partner at Terralever blogged about the hijacking of Google Local Business Listings earlier this year. It’s not the same tactic I’m speaking of here, but is to achieve a similar end-game. Blogger and Local expert Mike Blumenthal has been talking about this issue for some time. Here are a few posts from his blog:
- 2007: Google Maps being used for Philly fraud update
- 2009: Google Maps vs Locksmith Spammers: Spammers winning?
What’s unfortunate is that, when gamed, both the consumer and legitimate businesses lose. Businesses with legitimate listings cannot compete and get placement in the local results. The consumer, instead of seeing ten different local choices, really only has a few, or just one, depending on the extent of the exploit.
The manipulators who are creating the multiple listings are, of course, winners, as is Google, whose AdWords advertisements become more enticing to the small business who cannot get into the top local results.
Google has reported that they are working on the problem, but its hard to gauge how important it is to them. The locksmith example has been around for quite some time, and manipulated results propped up by spam are still easy to come by.
It is concerning, though. If I can do a few quick Google searches and find irregularities which could easily be handled mathematically, Google’s Local algorithm has some gaping holes in it. We can only hope they’re working the problem and are close to a solution.
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