SEO Rules Of Engagement and What TripAdvisor’s 610k Fine Means To Your Business

Well, well, well.

It finally happened.

An online review site (in this case, TripAdvisor) has finally been called to the carpet to be responsible for their own review content.  We’ve long known that there are fraudulent reviews all over the place, as well as irrational reviews from hysterical dissatisfied customers whose lives were ruined by a lukewarm bowl of soup at a restaurant.  It’s the fraudulent reviews that are the centerpiece here, though, because they have become so rampant.

These fake reviews are usually either A) an overabundance of overwhelmingly positive 5 star reviews of a suspiciously overlove nature which are typically written by the business owner or employees or B) overwhelmingly negative reviews of a suspiciously overhate nature which are typically written by a competitor and/or an employee or someone else they hired to write.

The Italian Competition Authority (ITA) has fined TripAdvisor $610,000 for failing to prevent fraudulent reviews.  What does this mean for the future of review sites and, more importantly, YOUR online review profiles?   Take a listen and Mark will clear the water for you:)

As always, we LOVE your questions!  Get involved…this is YOUR podcast!   Give your website development, design, SEO, content marketing and general Internet marketing questions to us on our Ask A Question page, email us at [email protected], or drop us a comment on Facebook or by olfactory telepathy.  We will do our best to answer your question on a future podcast, as we did this week’s questions:)   At your next visit to your favorite juke joint, make sure you ask the DJ to play the MIND Your Business podcast! Happy New Year from the minds at MIND:)