Google - forcing schools down the Ads route?

The best solution Google can come up with? We don't think so

We are back at the beginning of this century, and the biggest search engine on the planet - by far - decides that it would be helpful for all concerned if its users were allowed to post reviews of the businesses and services it listed. 

Helpful, no? Helpful for fellow consumers and helpful for the businesses and services under review. The best would stand out and the market would be made more efficient. Apparently not - certainly in the case of education. Three weeks ago Google quietly extended the patchy trial it had been rolling out in the US, whereby it deleted all existing reviews of educational establishments (but, somewhat bizarrely, only primary and secondary - you can still review pre-schools, colleges and universities) and denied users the ability to write future reviews.

Its reasoning? We'll let Google speak for itself, courtesy of today's piece in Schools Week.

The Guardian has this interesting comment...

So Google has turned off 'the first place parents turn when researching a school'.

At HelpHound, we get Google's reasoning, but we reject it, utterly and completely. The fact that schools have failed to engage with Google reviews is not entirely their own fault - even we have been known to describe Google reviews as akin to the Wild West on this blog. But for both to say 'we can't find a way to make Google reviews relevant' is a cop-out worthy of derision, in both cases: schools should have engaged with Google reviews by now, by asking parents to post them and responding to those posted. Google should have asked itself 'Why are educational reviews on our platform adding so little value?' Few would choose a lawyer or estate agent without - as the Guardian says above - reading their Google reviews, so what makes education an outlier?

HelpHound has openly stated in this blog, on more than one occasion, that Google owes it to its users - those who generate every cent of its $350 billion revenue - that's $350,000,000,000 - and $100 billion of profit, to clean up its act in relation to Google reviews. Specifically...

• the process of appealing against a factually incorrect, potentially misleading or just plain ridiculous review

Currently, it is effectively impossible for any entity receiving a Google review to successfully appeal against such a review unless 'it contravenes Google's Terms of Service'. Here they are.

At HelpHound we probably have more experience than any UK operator when it comes to advising on and drafting appeals on behalf of clients. Guess just how many of the 'factually inaccurate, potentially misleading or just plain ridiculous' reviews clients present us with do we advise them to appeal? Under 5%. Fortunately, few of our clients are subject to reviews that include 'Terrorist content', 'Violence and gore' or even 'sexually explicit content'. So we - and they - are left with the catch-alls: 'Misinformation' and 'Misrepresentation'. 

Of those where we advise there is a chance of a successful appeal (it helps if the reviewer has accused the business of theft, racism or any other kind of law-breaking) - and any outside chance whatsoever is clung to by most respectable businesses, as you can no doubt imagine - very few succeed. How so? Because Google is judge and jury - you get one chance at an appeal and Google's decision, delivered by email, is final. We also suspect that extremely 'Californian' notions of consumer rights are applied. Our impression - wrongly or rightly - is that the consumer is always right unless the business has cast-iron proof to the contrary. Very difficult when the reviewer is often unknown or unidentifiable because they have used an avatar - or even where they don't. We had a recent case where a French hotelier had a spat with a London-based doctor client of ours during their stay in Paris. The hotelier wrote a completely fictitious review on the practice's Google listing using his real name (and he was traceable with the minimum of searching to the hotel in question - information we provided to Google with the appeal). Guess what? The appeal against the demonstrably fake 1* review of the doctor's practice written by the French hotelier failed. The review stood.

Google's business model

These four schools are just a tiny part of Google's money-printing machine - up until now prospective parents could check out their reviews before clicking on the 'Sponsored' link. No longer. And 'sponsored'? Here's Google's own AI definition of the word 'sponsored': '"Sponsored" means something has been financially supported by a person or organization. The support could be for an event, program, or content. In exchange, the sponsor usually receives some type of recognition or promotion.' They used to get headed 'Ads'; maybe that was a more accurate definition? In our experience, the word 'sponsored', certainly in the context of schools has softer connotations.

It is 100% advertising driven. You don't for minute suppose that it is easier to sell advertising to a school if it has no reviews? We know for certain that we save our clients large 4 and even 5 figure sums by enabling them to shine in reviews so they don't need to pay for Google advertising. Just look at this example...

...it is many years since this client needed to pay for Google ads - can you imagine the howls if all its Google reviews vanished overnight?

Some will say 'Why should schools divert resources to manage their presence on Google, after all they are not commercial entities like estate agents?' Our response is 'If that were the case then simply exempt private schools from this new policy' although we still remain firmly of the opinion that reviews of all educational establishments should be subject to open review on Google; after all, it takes very little time to manage such engagement effectively. 

And finally...

Here's the most recent Google search on 'Eton College reviews'...

...more helpful than Google reviews? You decide.

We will keep an eye out for the next sector to have reviews 'turned off', and be sure to let you know when it happens.

4.9 is the new 4.5

In 2020 a Google score of 4.5 was OK, in fact it was more than just OK. That is no longer the case - for service businesses and the professions anyway. For our reasoning please read on...

The way consumers use reviews is constantly evolving. Over the last ten years the major shift has been away from Facebook (now less than 1% of online reviews) and the review sites (altogether then likes of Yelp, Trustpilot, Feefo, Yell, and Reviews.io make up less than 20%) towards Google (at 79%).

In doing so, consumers have refined their shorthand to shortlist potential businesses. In the early days, any score over 4.0 would do. Then consumers began to realise that reviews broke down into two distinct categories: those for products and those for services.

Product reviews

Few of us bother to read product reviews, as long at we see four stars 

These are increasingly used by consumers to validate that the product they are about to buy 'does what it says on the tin'. Savvy consumers are more likely to read professional reviews of products and just use online reviews - Google or otherwise - to check out delivery and after-sales reliability. The fact that someone occasionally gives a camera, a washing machine or a pair of trousers a 1* review is neither here nor there.

Service and professional reviews

Reviews of services on the other hand - here a womens' health clinic - are increasingly relied on by consumers. If you read the review above, which appears on the client's website and on Google, you will see what we mean 

Now we get serious. Reviews - Google reviews - of services and professions - from medical, to financial, legal and so on, are approached with far more scrutiny by consumers than those of products. For two very good reasons: the businesses we are speaking of here offer potentially life-saving benefits on the upside and the flip side - of choosing the wrong solution - can be equally life-changing. So many consumers slow the process right down from 'Nice shoes, score 4 out of five, click and buy.' to 'Let's make a shortlist based on the business's headline Google score and then take time to mine down into the individual reviews themsleves.'

We are sure you are with us thus far. If fact we are sure most readers will recognise this behaviour because they will have conformed to it to a greater or lesser extent. So - back to our headline: if your business's competitors are scoring 4.5 - 4.8 (maybe up from 4.1 - 4.4 a few years ago) yours had better be scoring 4.9. In fact, just to be sure, best score 4.9 whatever the competition is scoring.

If ever there was any doubt as to whether or not Google reviews of professional services are read then this screenshot will dispel that, once and for all. Last week Google added the clickable ❤️ and 🙏 emojis under each review (mobile only for the time being) - and just look how many the latest review for this client has garnered already - in just two days!

So - action to take

Take a long hard look at your business's approach to reviews. Make use of our experience - after all we have been advising clients - and learning their, as well as our, secrets of success for well over a decade. The easiest way is to speak to us, we can examine exactly where your business is on the learning curve and advise accordingly. Reading one or more of the following articles will also help...

• Moderation - the golden key to protecting your business from factually inaccurate, potentially misleading or just plain unfair reviews

• Compliance - comes under the heading of 'boring but important'; the CMA is on the warpath against businesses playing fast-and-loose where reviews are concerned

• Results - once a business has review management cracked the impact on both enquiries and the quality of the individual pieces of business transacted will rise, as these comparisons conclusively demonstrate (one of our clients in this example has recently opened a new office to service demand in the same area)

...but the ultimate test is to put our advice into action, inviting reviews to your own website and then on to Google (that is the only way to benefit from the safety net of moderation, with inaccurate or misleading reviews being and get the stars in search you see here...

...so look at our fees (remembering there is no contract period) and our guarantee of success. Then call us.