Comment: Facebook and Google business star ratings

Posted by: changeratings
22 Jan 2014
You've missed out one of the key issues, and it's a serious game-changer; you can't see all the reviews and ratings. If you read carefully through what Facebook says about the reviews system you'll see that the reviewer can adjust the privacy settings of the review post. This means that unless the page admin is included in the group set by the reviewer then the admin will never even see the review, let alone be able to report it. This leaves the system open to serious abuse, as many page owners have already discovered. See http://facebook.com/changeratings for more horror stories.

Posted by: iconsulthotels
7 Jul 2014
Hi there! Sorry, I only saw your comment today while I was doing research for another piece on the same subject. Unfortunately, we don't get notified when somebody leaves a comment on our articles and I forgot to check. As far as I know, Facebook will only count reviews that are posted as "Public" in the overall rating of a page/business. Yes, this doesn't address the issue of not being able to reply to every review, but at least negative ratings which aren't posted as "Public" will not damage the average rating of a business. It also seems to me that Facebook is making things up as they go along (as so often) and we'll probably see more changes re. the rating & star system coming in the coming months. My position on review services has always been the same and Facebook's star-rating system is no exception: You can complain about them, you can fight them, or you can refuse to participate (where possible), but if users & consumers are using a service and seem to find it valuable, you haven't really got a choice but to get involved. After all, you wouldn't leave a guest ranting in the lobby of your hotel just stand there without saying anything either, right?