Google Algorithm Discriminates Against Bad Reviews

j_col writes "According to the official Google blog, Google has altered their PageRank algorithm to not give back linking points to bad reviews of websites belonging to online retailers, following the publication of a recent article in the New York Times describing one woman's experiences in being harassed by an online retailer she found via Google. The specific changes to the algorithm are of course a guarded secret. So considering that these changes are already live, how do we know how the algorithm determines a bad review from a good one, and whether or not innocent online retailers will be wrongly punished by having their rankings downgraded?"

Re:If they told you ...

[hedwards]

Yes, but doing that takes longer than if they're provided with a list of criteria along with a scoring guide. It's not ideal, but it gives more time between adjustments and having to make a new adjustment because somebody has it figured out.

Poor Title: discrimination against badly reviewed

[rsborg]

... not "bad reviews", which would be very anti-consumer.

Instead, the poorly reviewed products and services are going to lose index.

This kind of selective pressure will reward those companies whose services and products garner better reviews.

I just wonder if this will lead to more astroturfed reviews and payola for review-sites like Yelp.

Re:DecorMyEyes is the 4th result on the 2nd page

[mjperson]

That's pretty buried. If I don't see what I'm looking for on the first page of results, I adjust my search terms, I don't click through to the second (of countless) page of results.

Am I the only one...

[nog_lorp]

... who feels like Google results have gotten really, really bad? I know it can come in waves as the SEO arms race progresses, but srsly. I feel like Google's user base has shifted from technical people to the average populace, and so have the results.

Re:If they told you ...

[geekoid]

Yes, and in the article they acknowledge people are always trying to game their system. It's very clear that keeping it secret is done to delay gaming the system and to give them time to keep refining it.

Yes, someone will game it. Their response has been very reasonable.

Re:Poor Title: discrimination against badly review

[rsborg]

This kind of selective pressure will reward those companies who can afford to pay people to destroy the page ranking of their competitors.

FTFY.

I thought about that but the article states that

an algorithmic solution which detects the merchant from the Times article along with hundreds of other merchants that, in our opinion, provide an extremely poor user experience

.. I presume this means that the weighting would not be linear, but more like an exponential dropoff when reviews are numerous, time-disjoint, and all negative. I'm sure Google has done at least a sample analysis using their mountain of data. I think the biggest point made here is that (as a vendor) services to monitor your product/service will become increasingly important so you can reply to negative reviews and actively manage any trolls... whether this leads to more engagement or simply more astroturfing is yet to be seen.