Apparently ranking too high in the search results can now cause you to be censored and fined — In France anyway. A French court has fined a blogger and ordered that she change the title of a restaurant review. The court found that the fact that the review was negative and that it ranked high in the search results caused the review to harm the restaurant’s business.

The BBC reports that the blogger had 3,000 followers which was enough to push the story up the rankings. Court documents state that the review appeared number four on the search results page of a Google search for the restaurant. This dispute is not about the accuracy, but about the influence the review had on the restaurant. One has to wonder if we would be having the same conversation about a positive review.

Ironically, the news coverage this story has received has probably done more harm that if the restaurant owner had just take the review in stride and used it to learn and improve their business and service.

This would not happen in the U.S. because we are protected by the first amendment. Not the case in France, where apparently the judicial system chooses to protect a bad restaurant owner rather than the person reviewing the establishment.

It is interesting to think about how much of an impact reviews can have on your business and how prominently they show up in the search results especially for local search queries. Watch your reviews closely and do all you can to provide reasons for customers to say good things about your business rather than bad.  Being knowlegdgeable about the changes search engines are making and some factors of SEO will help you keep you business show up where you want in the searches.