No such thing as a bad review?

With so many free listings pages, blogs and dedicated review sites on the web, building a company’s brand online can be done in numerous ways.

But when fake reviews crop up about genuine businesses on legitimate sites, what can be done?

This BBC article highlights just how easy it can be to tarnish a company’s reputation through malicious reviews.

Reviews of this type are either spam, or the work of similar businesses that are trying to bad mouth their competitors.

With companies vying to be the top of the search engine listings in their field, it was probably only a matter of time before more underhand techniques were used.

Website users themselves can flag spam or malicious reviews, although most review sites do have their own methods of detection too.

However, actually getting the reviews removed can prove a momentous task - and one that if not done quickly can prove catastrophic for a business.