There are two primary types of fake reviews on Google:
A fake review where the author wasn’t an actual customer and posted a review that doesn’t reflect a genuine interaction with a business, and
A fake review where the author was in fact a legitimate customer but posted a review with an ulterior motive or malicious intent.
The first type of fake Google reviews usually falls into one of two categories: (1) the false review was written by your competitor or ex-employee, with the purpose of taking your business’s online presence down a notch, or (2) the negative review was written by a third-party who has a grudge against your business. Maybe the author didn’t like how you market your business, maybe a colleague or friend of the author previously engaged your law firm, or maybe the author was just trying to gain an edge in an otherwise competitive marketplace.
The second type of fake Google reviews usually occurs where a real customer had genuine interaction with your law firm but described a situation in their Google review that’s contrary to what took place – often with an ulterior motive or malicious intent in mind. This can take the form of an author creating multiple online accounts and aliases, pretending their interaction with your law firm was worse than it was, and describing a poor experience that never actually happened.
This second type of fake review is typically posted in two primary situations:
For purposes of extorting your law firm
When you’re just flat out dealing with a malicious person and you did nothing wrong.