Garden Watchdog

Can anything be done to stop Tennessee Wholesale Nursery (D & T Wholesale Nursery)'s abuse of the Garden Watchdog? They're much worse than even Dimeo Blueberry Farms with the obviously fake reviews, and they've been spamming the dickens out of the GW today.

The unusual pattern of activity was noted over the weekend and today I spent quite a bit of time researching each review to determine its source and whether it was connected to any other review. (There's "gut feel" and proof and we cannot make any disclosures without proof.) I think we've taken care of things, but the comments may or may not continue to stream in (and we will continue to review them.)

We caution vendors that this type of activity has extremely longterm effects: long after the flurry has died off, readers can spot the anomaly in the feedback trail; even if the comments are legitimate, the vendor will have difficulty convincing skeptical readers that it was just serendipity.

I understand the situation you're in without proof, Terry. It's just too bad that they end up pushing the legitimate reviews off of the GW main page denying people the chance to see the most recent ones without doing a specific search.

I could be wrong, but I think it's a temporary problem that will correct itself :-)

Why can't you just remove all those users? It's so obvious that something's going on - they all signed up on the same day and only reviewed that nursery. I think DG needs some kind of software that matches one's zip code with their IP address. I know the software's out there because I've seen it used on another site (which I can't remember right now).

If we remove a user completely, we remove all trails and traces of their activity that led to their dismissal. And if the vendor objects to us removing them, we have no way of demonstrating WHY we deleted them. Time heals wounds, and over time, this will fade, too.

That's too bad. I know people have been removed before; I just assumed it could be done again. But if you need/want to keep track of what they did I can see why you can't.

Too funny! 56 positive reviews written in 2 days mostly by people that have just done that 1 review. And it looks like the 4 positive ones left are as interesting.

The other day I heard a commercial on the radio that I thought was interesting. The commercial had to do with a dentist that thought he had a pretty successful practice and he had been used to getting new clients every month. When he realized the new patient inflow had suddenly stopped he Googled himself and found that he had one bad review on the internet and he surmised that the thing keeping prospective clients away. Enter this brand new service . . . they go to bat for you and restore your online reputation by combating "false" or defamatory reviews ostensibly by having them removed or by flooding search engines with fake positive reviews.

It seems to me that what we've seen here could very well be the result of such a service and I imagine this trend will continue to be something that web sites will have to fight against.

Here's a page on one such company's web site. They call it "Inoculation" of your negative reviews. They also come right out and say "We inoculate the first pages of Search Engine Results against negative listings by introducing more authoritative positive listings, which will naturally outrank and push down the negative ones." And by "introducing" postive reviews I think we can all see that they really mean they make them up.

It's a brave new world we're living in . . .

Oops forgot to add the link that I was referencing: http://www.reputationmanagementconsultants.com/online-reputation/

This message was edited Jul 26, 2011 11:12 AM

We'll known it's been employed by one major nursery when their very negative ratings go to all satisfied companies singing their praises.

Sounds a fake world!

Camelot, minus Richard Burton.