Protecting Restaurants from Botnet Manipulation of Online Reviews
Fake reviews are killing the review industry
Every business has to face it, there’s a harsh reality on the internet for fake reviews that will plague your good business on going. As a business owner, it helps to identify these review bots and report them. This can be a difficult task especially if these reviews are bot generated. There are hundreds of reviews being generated as I write this blog on review websites everywhere.
One of the biggest problems for review websites is the constant battle to be a trusted source for online reviews. It’s very difficult to manage reviewers coming in and leaving reviews that are not only fake, but in some cases not at all relevant.
Here’s how to sniff out fake reviews
I am a software geek that loves anything that simplifies our world, automates tasks, gathers information and helps buying decisions. Every so often I come across some really brilliant software ideas and today is one of those days. We recently came across a very powerful piece of software that allows for a consumer to analyze for fake reviews.
The bottom line, review bots are real, they exist, and your competition can destroy you using them. As a business, we help you to manage reviews that come in from all the major review engines including Rating Bee Reviews so that you’re always in the know when any review is written. In addition, we follow strict guidelines in the review process ensuring that anyone that writes a review about your business is also helping you well beyond just simple flaming reviews, that will definitely weed out review bots.
Also, the following article is a powerful reminder especially for restaurant owners managing these negative reviews.
I’ve gathered together some excerpts from an amazing article written by Diane D. Reynolds here that I think are the most important points and below, you’ll see a link to the entire article below.
Non-chain restaurants with low or middling Yelp reviews were more likely to go out of business
According to a 2017 conducted by Professor Michael Luca of Harvard Business School, non-chain restaurants with low or middling Yelp reviews were more likely to go out of business than those with positive Yelp reviews, as demonstrated by the fact that after San Francisco increased its minimum wage, restaurants with 3.5 star average ratings were 14 percent more likely to close, while those with five-star average ratings were no more likely to close. A 2016 study conducted by Professor Luca also found that a one-star increase in a non-chain restaurant’s Yelp rating aggregated from all user reviews led to a five percent to nine percent increase in revenue.
Restaurants whose economic viability often hinges on their Yelp and TripAdvisor ratings now face a grave threat in the form of Botnets
Botnets capable of manipulating a restaurant’s average rating in a matter of seconds or minutes. Botnets are networks of computers or devices infected with malware that places them all under the control of a single hacker who can command them all to act in unison with a single keystroke. For example, if a hacker controlling a Botnet consisting of 20,000 computing devices “likes” a post on Twitter, all 20,000 computing devices will immediately “like” the post in question.
Botnets suspected of being controlled by Russian agents were famously used to disseminate political propaganda on social media in the days and weeks leading up to the 2016 United States Presidential Election.
If a hacker controlling a Botnet consisting of 20,000 computing devices ‘likes’ a post on Twitter, all 20,000 computing devices will immediately ‘like’ the post in question.
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