There are some reports of the reviews left on some Google Local Service Ads that say those reviews are being hijacked. In a sense, the reviews are being taken from one local listing and placed on another.
Mike Blumenthal shared these details on Near Media and on X. He showed how this local business get 9,304 reviews:
But it really hijacked them or "borrowed" them from here:
He wrote, "Fl Affordable Air Duct Cleaning and Dryer Vent Cleaning of Miami appears to have over 2300 reviews. It is, however, deception. They have managed to hijack the review corpus of a totally different local profile, the Percy Warner Park in Nashville, TN. When you call the number in the ad, and ask you are told that you are speaking with Marketing 770. Obviously not sure where the call is originating."
Here is another:
Another example of LSA reviewjacking where Top Team Air Pros (https://t.co/W9hRLESp9n) “borrowed” the reviews from Sunset Cliffs (https://t.co/yuNoONzwam) pic.twitter.com/JGADDfs6tU
— Mike Blumenthal (@mblumenthal) December 1, 2023
Super interesting to see this being uncovered. It makes you wonder if this is being done to manipulate Google or is this some sort of weird bug or something else?
It’s not a bug. We have found an agency relationship between these and others we have found. More details Wednesday.
— Mike Blumenthal (@mblumenthal) December 4, 2023
Update: Google is investigating the issue:
Hi Mike, Our teams are currently investigating this issue.
— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) December 4, 2023
Forum discussion at X.
