Apparently Google wanted to promote its review site it calls Hotpot by running a contest with over $13,000 in prizes in Portland, Oregon. The person or persons with the most reviews wins. In fact the contest was designed to give away lots of prizes and gain lots of buzz and reviews. I first saw this on Twitter today and read the details over at Search Engine Land, http://searchengineland.com/google-markets-hotpot-breaks-its-own-reviews-rules-58357. I suggest reading this one! I found this all very interesting especially this part form Google "Reviews are only valuable when they are honest and unbiased. Even if well-intentioned, a conflict of interest can undermine the trust in a review. In addition, we do not accept reviews written for money or other incentives. Please also do not post reviews on behalf of others or misrepresent your identity or affiliation with the place you are reviewing.†I have been writing about this on my blog this week essentially asking what is black hat Places SEO and what is white? It seems Google has answered my question or did they? Is this a case of do as I say and not as I do? With so many local small businesses dependent on Google Places traffic it would be nice if they did what they require of others! Sending mixed signals doesn't help anyone! What say you
The contest does not require you to rate any particular business, rather any business of your choice - nor that you write a positive or negative review. I don't see any problem with this. I think it is pretty clear that they don't want any specific business to offer incentives for reviews of specific establishments.
Well, I believe that it is not unbiased when you reward someone for taking an action. Also the contest is limited to a specific area. The biggest problem that I have has to do with perception. People will look at this as an excuse to run their own contest. It creates gray areas that can be exploited. I personally feel that you should lead by example and this is a bad example. Here's the real rub. It gets people to do something that they would not normally be doing for a change at a reward. That doesn't sound unbiased or honest to me which is what they require of everyone else.
I'll bet if you want to fund a $13,000 contest with your own money and exact rules as google, they would give you permission to do it. Googles rules are obviously there to prevent a specific business from offering incentives. And let's be real, no one but google would pay for a contest that encourages you to review any company, good or bad, in a geographical area. There is no conflict of interest in this contest (which they clearly state is the intention of the rules).
Google is offering money for product reviews. That's not against their rules. That rule is there so a business doesn't give free products to be reviewed or pay people to review the product at Hotpot. It's ok for the reviewer to get money for a review as long as it's not from the product's company because then the review will be biased.
Local companies have incentivized people for years to give them positive feedback and reviews on and off line. I can think of a number of ones just around me that if I fill out a survey or write a review I get a percentage off my next visit or a free "X". It never has been completely unbiased and open.
What needs to be focused on here is not the individual person's review, but the fact that this contest will spur LOTS of people to review similar, if not the same, places. this helps even out any bias in an individual person's review. On the note, there's nothing wrong with giving out "prizes" for this. It's not different than a grocery store giving you a discount because you have a card that tracks inventory bought and helps reduce the expenditure out of their own pockets.
Surely, this Google activity and experiment doesn't mean to manipulate or favor any business or such organization. SEO's might see good ideas too in this event like how to build better review..