In this week’s episode of Local Search Tuesdays, I’m sharing the breaking news about Google’s new “review alerts” that are being displayed on Google Business Profiles in the UK. Fake reviews and review fraud are a massive problem worldwide, so it’s nice to see Google taking a more aggressive approach to fighting fake reviews. Check out the video for all the details and a few examples…

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Welcome back to another episode of Local Search Tuesdays. You’ll definitely want to watch this week’s episode, because I’m talking about the new review alerts that Google is displaying on Google Business Profiles.

You’ve probably already heard about the updated FTC laws about reviews, and now Google is making moves too. In the past, Google usually released updates in North America before pushing them out to the rest of the world, but this time, the new updates for reviews have been released first in the UK.

We have seen two different review alerts on Google Business Profiles so far, and they’re similar to alerts we’ve seen on Yelp for quite some time.

Here’s the first:
If a business is caught with fake reviews, a big ol’ warning is plopped smack dab in the middle of the business’s Google Business Profile. We don’t know how long this alert will be displayed, but it’s potentially pretty damaging since the public will likely mistrust the business.

And here’s the second:
In more extreme cases, Google will turn off the ability to leave reviews for a business and display a massive alert to let people know that not only were the suspicious reviews removed, no new reviews can be left for the business. Again, we don’t know how long this alert will be displayed or how long the review block will stay in place.

So far, these are only in the UK, but it’s highly likely that this will be rolled out to the rest of the world at some point soon. Review fraud is pretty rampant, so it’s nice to see Google be more aggressive in fighting fake reviews.

That’s all the time we have left for this week’s episode, so you know what that means.
Put your hand on the screen right here:
We totally just high-fived ‘cause you learned something awesome. Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you again next week for another episode of Local Search Tuesdays.