Letting zeal carry you away…

posted by philip in Snooth, Wine Industry

We all get carried away sometimes, especially if its concerning something you feel passionately about. We see this on the site sometimes, but never more brazenly than today.

Basic story is probably pretty familiar: business owner works hard and takes pride in their product, wants the public to see the greatness of said product, and is disappointed when its received neutrally, and so, growing ever more frustrated, resorts to increasingly aggressive and damaging ways to promote product. Public gets angry, cycle intensifies…

Today a winery owner created a profile on Snooth and went and rated their own wines 5′s. Not just the one time though, in fact, one wine was rated a solid 50+ times today alone. Sounds like a recipe for Snooth search results dominance, right?

(image obscured to protect the identity of subject!)

Well, I’m afraid not, and for three reasons:

(1) The algorithm doesn’t actually work that way. We spent a long time coming up with the way the SnoothRanks are calculated to make sure they weren’t easy to game. Snooth Rank takes into account the scores, the frequency and distribution of the scores, the popularity of the scorer and other factors – its not meant to be ‘gamed’.

(2) By doing this you actually end up discrediting not just the reviews you left, but all the valid reviews on your wine. These other reviews are left by your customers, they come back to check their pages to see how many votes they have received and to see who else is rating the wines they are drinking. Damaging your reputation with the vocal portion of your community should be avoided as these people could and should be your champions.

(3) When you try to fiddle with the scores and you use a profile that links back to your winery it looks especially bad.

Wineries, Retailers, Distributors, Importers – we know you love your product, and we’re here to help you promote your wines to customers new and old. Everything you would ever need to know about how you can work with us to promote your products to the highest degree is right here, in the partnership hub. Please take a look and take the time to learn about the ways in which you can legitimately leverage the community of our 10,000+ daily users, and give our users, your customers, the respect they deserve.