Recommendation poisoning
Recommendation poisoning is planting or rigging list articles, reviews and comparisons so AI platforms recommend one brand over others.
Recommendation poisoning is rigging the pages AI platforms read so they recommend one brand over the rest. It usually means "best of" lists, comparison pages and reviews that look independent and aren't: a brand pays for top spot, writes its own ranking on a site that looks neutral, or floods a category with fake reviews.
It works because AI platforms lean on these pages when people ask which brand to choose. For you, it's a reason to watch what those pages say about your category, and a trick you shouldn't use yourself.
What it looks like
Some signs that a page in your category might be rigged:
- A list where the same brand comes first on every page of a site, for every product
- A "review" site with no named writers and no way to contact anyone
- A comparison that gets your prices or features wrong in a way that always favours one rival
- A burst of new five-star reviews for a competitor in a short time
For example, Fernhill Coffee notices that answers to "best coffee subscription" keep putting a little-known brand first. The sources are three list articles published the same week, on three new sites, with the same wording in places. All three were set up by the brand at the top.
What you can do
Report pages that break a platform's rules to that platform, and to the search engines whose results feed the answers. Fake reviews break the rules of most review sites, so report those too. Then put your effort into the honest sources the platforms read, so the rigged pages carry less weight.
Rigged pages do sometimes work for a while. They also break the rules of the platforms, and when they're caught, the brand behind them can lose more than it gained.
In AnswerOrbit
The Pages tab in Sources lists the pages the answers used, with each page's type, like a list article or a comparison, and the Movers tab shows sources that are new this week. Star a page to follow it in Watched. We never recommend reviews you arrange or reward, posts that hide who you are, or links you pay or trade for.