Ask HN: What do you do if another dev intentionally leaves a bad review?
What are some things you could do if you suspect another developer has left a poor review of your app on purpose?
Some background: I opened the google play dev console this morning and noticed that there was a new rating on my app. ( I don't get a ton of them but they're usually around 4-5 stars for this specific app )
So when I noticed that it was a 1 star rating with a somewhat angry sounding comment and a link to another competing app, I was a little concerned, but I thought perhaps there was a bug I wasn't aware of. So I began checking into the person that had left the comment, to maybe get in touch and see if it was in-fact a bug.
I opened the google plus profile associated with the comment I noticed it was full of posts for apps from the company that made the app the user had suggested, and a link to the website of the company in question.
Long story short, Although the name of the account on the comment is not the company I have a high level of suspicion that this person has put this rating to send traffic to their app instead.
What sorts of things could I do? I think android play store has a spam button, should I respond to the comment? Maybe contact the "developer" through email? I'm not sure I could be 100% certain to actually accuse them of doing this, so what might be the best course of action?
People farm reviews all the time unfortunately. http://fiverr.com/gigs/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=googl...
That is just the tip of the iceberg.
If one review worries you, you probably have too few reviews. I’d say, get in touch with users of your app and ask them to leave reviews.
I respectfully disagree. No matter that review is from another developer or a real user. Ignoring it is worst course of action you can suggest to anyone.
I am actually in favor of taking each and everyone of them seriously and work on them till your bandwidth can accommodate.