Is is Possible to Have Too Many Good Online Reviews?
January 23, 2015
While it may sound counter-intuitive, because of the way search-engine algorithms work, it’s possible to have too many 5 star reviews.
Too many perfect reviews? What gives?
You work hard to earn 5 star level reviews. You get your customers to put them onto platforms like Google Plus.
Then you find your reviews filtered and your rankings dropping.
Here is the mistake you’ve made: too many perfect reviews in too short a time period.
It just doesn’t seem natural.
Google expects that most businesses will occasionally get some negative reviews. Part of this is the reality that we’re all dealing with a review process driven by the general public. If the reviews that you’re getting are authentic, you’re probably going to get a few bad ones, either from an internal mistake (nobody’s perfect) or from an individual who’s on an unfair rant.
This is one reason that at far as Google local rankings go, sites that have an overall lower average review score can still rank higher than those with higher scores.
What counts more is authenticity. This involves factors such as not getting reviews from the same IP address, natural use of language, realistic scoring, and reviews being added over a natural time frame.
Getting a huge batch of 5 stars reviews over a period of week or two is not seen as you setting a world record for great service. It’s seen as spam.
Bottom line, offer great service and get excellent reviews over a natural time period. Don’t worry about the occasional slip-up or customer who’s perpetually unsatisfied – a few poor reviews will be understood by both search engines and most consumers.