Google Maps Adds User Generated Reviews

The Google Lat Long Blog announced that Google Maps now allows for user-generated reviews. We covered in the past that Google had reviews from third-party sources, but now Google allows any logged-in user to add reviews for any business listing, similar to how it recently allowed maps to gain user data.

For example, I wrote a review for my company listing:

How do you review businesses?

(1) Locate a business on Google Maps and click on the “more info” link.

(2) A pop-up will appear with one or two links to “write a review.”

(3) Fill out the review. It must be 100 characters or longer.

(4) Hit save and presto, it’s done:

Yes, I did just review my own company, as you can see. What prevents owners from giving themselves good reviews like this? There is an option for others to “flag as inappropriate” any reviews they disagree with.