How Online Review Platforms Protect Your Business from Fake Reviews

In the Internet economy, online consumer reviews are a powerful tool used in helping businesses drive growth and integrate crucial feedback to create a better customer experience. For consumers, online reviews provide a source of expert opinion from peers that have had previous experiences with a product or service. Though as powerful as reviews can be, today’s digital world also opens the door for some companies to try and game the system.

A recent expert article shared information about the rise of botnets manipulating online reviews, which results in damaging a business's reputation. One of the solutions was to push Congress to enact reforms to “incentivize large technology companies to implement safeguards to keep their platforms free from Botnets.” The information about botnets is true and while they can be harmful, it’s important to understand that online review platforms take preventative measures to ensure these types of review attacks are caught before going live. The combination of highly-advanced software tools, dedicated investigation and compliance teams, and support from the online community allow online review platforms to tackle fake reviews and bots efficiently and diligently. All of this serves in the greater interest of creating ever-improving experiences between businesses and consumers.

Fighting Fake Content with Artificial Intelligence

Fraud detection software is an essential part of any platform which is built around and supports user-generated content (UGC), such as online review platforms or social media platforms. Such platforms are investing tens of millions of dollars in R&D to tag botnet content and immediately remove them from the platform. So how do platforms combat fake content? They use a strong combination of dedicated people and highly-advanced technology to protect the platform. Customized fraud detection software automatically detects suspicious content and removes fakes. Companies spend years developing and fine-tuning the advanced algorithms and AI that form its foundation and continue to invest heavily in this area.

A Human Touch to Help

The software is also backed by a trained compliance team to investigate all reports of misuse and fraud. Together with software, the dedicated compliance team handles high-volumes of requests, queries, and reports every month, applying guidelines fairly and equally across the board, and interacting with thousands of companies and consumers across the globe. The teams are usually a group of skilled multilingual experts who bring interesting work and life experience – having held previous roles like police investigation, journalism, forensic science, and even diplomacy.

Assistance from the Community

While detecting problems isn’t an exact science and even though platforms catch most of what’s out there, sites always welcome help from anyone. Review platforms also rely on the community by having tools that enable consumers and companies to flag reviews if they violate company guidelines. In addition to including report functions on the platforms, some companies have a whistleblower function that allows anyone who notices fraudulent behavior to contact the compliance team directly.

It’s important to remember that online review platforms are always fighting for your business and they know leaving themselves susceptible to fake reviews harming your business is not an option. With consumer trust declining, it’s imperative that review platforms monitor all reviews accordingly and prevent any entity from deceiving customers. And with that goal in mind, your business is an important target to protect.