In an age where consumer reviews and digital word-of-mouth reign supreme, a squeaky clean online hotel presence is more important than ever before.

In a race to maintain brand relevance, consistency and conversions, it seems some hotels will go to great, if not sometimes criminal, lengths to strengthen their online status. 

Late last year, popular chain brand, Meriton Serviced Apartments, were found guilty of rigging TripAdvisor reviews. 

According to the Federal Court action launched by the ACCC, the chain was allegedly engaging in deceptive or misleading conduct, which ultimately resulted in preventing potential negative feedback featuring on their TripAdvisor reviews page.

Restricting consumer engagement with the online survey tool, Review Express, staff at the Meriton were advised not to send a request for review to guests who had made a complaint during their stay. 

Only guests who had not complained during their stay were invited to review the property – resulting in an obvious positive bias across the review platform.

Zuckerberg world-wide data skimming scandal aside, there are so many privacy alarm bells ringing right now. Not to mention the fact that TripAdvisor purport to be an independent review platform yet previously have had data stolen by an undisclosed third party (March 2011), aligned heavily with Facebook in 2012, and currently promote their connection with ReviewPro – a third party data collection tool which can embed TripAdvisor review links into your guest post-stay surveys. 

Unfortunately, offering up data to third party agents, skewing reviews and gaming guest ratings is not new. Paid fake reviewers have been around since the dawn of the digital age. 

Usually, it’s easy to spot a fake review – they generally feature more emotive language, strong references in the first person and are high on detail of the reviewer’s personal life, rather than the stay itself, to build credibility.  

In a digital sphere clogged with online bots and paid reviewers, it’s fair to say that the system is becoming almost unreliable. Throw into the mix, the Meriton trick of hand-picking which guests receive a request to review, and we’ve reached a new level of hotel brand deception.

So who do you trust?

For growing independent hotel brands, the obvious review platform of choice is Google. 

According to recent research presented by BrightLocal, Google is the current front-runner in the world of online reviews, consistently gaining the highest number of new reviews, against its direct competitor platforms.

Google’s sheer scale, coupled with its native integration into Android devices gives it the biggest audience and the best route to market to prompt users to leave reviews for recently visited businesses.

These efforts are further enhanced by Google’s mobile location tracking capabilities – which allows for transparency of where the user is when providing a review on a hotel or business.

It seems that this savvy and convenient technology is not lost on the guest or consumer, with Google more than doubling new business reviews, year on year. 

Currently the third most trusted review platform (behind Facebook and Yelp), Google is forging ahead to quickly become the leader of the pack.

And the kicker for hoteliers? Due to Google’s mobile optimisation and user focus, there’s less opportunity for hotel wheeling and dealing with paid and fake reviews.