![Google Responds To Evidence Of Reviews Algorithm Bias Google Responds To Evidence Of Reviews Algorithm Bias](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/google-reviews-algorithm-bi.jpg)
Google responded to a small publisher whose article offered a step by step walkthrough of how big corporate publishers are manipulating the Google Reviews System Algorithm and getting away with it, demonstrating what appears to be a bias towards big brands that negatively impacts small independent publishers.
HouseFresh Google Algorithm Exposé
The story begins with a post titled, How Google is killing independent sites like ours, published on the HouseFresh website. It published what it asserted was evidence that several corporate review sites gamed Google’s algorithm by creating the perception of a hands-on reviews for what HouseFresh maintains were not actual reviews.
For example, it noted how many of the publishers ranked an expensive air purifier that HouseFresh (and Consumer Reports) reviewed and found to perform worse than less expensive alternatives, used more energy and required spending $199.98/year on purifier replacements. Yet the big brand sites gave the product glowing reviews, presumably because the high cost results in higher affiliate earnings.
Remarkably, they showed how the product photos from different big brand publishers were sourced from the same photographer in what appears to be the exact same location, strongly implying that the individual publishers themselves did not each review the product.
HouseFresh offered a detail takedown of what they insist are instances of Google showing preference to fake reviews.
This is a partial list of sites alleged by HouseFresh of successfully ranking low quality reviews:
- Better Homes & Gardens
- Real Simple
- Dotdash Meredith
- BuzzFeed
- Reddit with a spam link dropped by a user with a suspended account
- Popular Science
HouseFresh published a lucid and rational account demonstrating how Google’s Reviews Systems algorithms allegedly give big brands a pass while small independent websites publishing honest reviews steadily lose traffic under each successive wave Google’s new algorithms.
Google Responds
Google’s SearchLiaison offered a response on X (formerly Twitter) that took the accusations seriously.
Notable in the response are the following facts: