The Shed at DulwichIf you’re running a small business you know all about how important online reviews can be. Many of us check the ratings on popular sites like Yelp, Google, FourSquare and TripAdvisor before visiting a store, staying at a hotel or eating at a restaurant. A couple of reviews, bad or great, can make or break a business.
But how reliable are these sites, and how easily can they be manipulated? Sadly, easier than you may think. That was proven by a freelancer named Oobah Butler. Writing on Vice, Butler set out to make his garden shed the top rated restaurant in all of London on TripAdvisor.
It was all fake — and he succeeded.
Butler is no neophyte to manipulating online reviews. Back in the day, he admits he would take £10 from business owners to write fake, positive reviews of their businesses. So he decided to take things one step further. “In the current climate of misinformation, and society’s willingness to believe absolute bull***,” he wrote, “maybe a fake restaurant is possible? Maybe it’s exactly the kind of place that could be a hit?”
He chose the garden shed behind his house and renamed it “The…
