The New York Attorney general announced a crackdown after an investigation into businesses-SEO/ Marketing Firms and small businesses that create fake reviews and post them to sites like Yelp and Google.

The investigation ultimately caught 19 companies and has agreed to stop publishing fake online reviews and will also pay penalties ranging from $2,500 to almost $100,000 as part of settlement announced with the New York AG’s.

As most SEO’s know, reviews can not only make or break a company and persuade a potential customer into purchasing your product or not, but search engines also use review data to help them determine which companies should be displayed in the search results and more specifically in the business listings.

Although the investigation was targeted only at companies operating in New York, Yelp believes it will have wider implications, this shows that fake reviews are legitimate target of law enforcement. When it comes to SEO, a lot of people get duped and tricked into ranking schemes with false promises and tactics that end up hurting their business and going against the search engine terms and conditions.

SEO takes time and to do it right, one can’t expect results overnight. Little by little, the fake online review industry is cracking.