[turbospooler]

I was debating about vehicle safety with a friend, when he mentioned that Fronx is a 5-star GNCAP rated vehicle .
I laughed, but then he sent me a screenshot which showed a news article from ABP Live showing that the Fronx got 5-star safety rating from GNCAP!
I was immediately shocked as I didn't see any discussion, any promotional material of Fronx using this "award"!
I delved into my own research and understood what had happened and how easy it is to fool customers using Google Search!

I searched on Google with the keywords "Fronx gncap". URL attached for the search result over here.
Image attached below on how it looks like:



On clicking the 1st link of ABP Live, I found the title had been reworded . You can see the result for yourself below!



I would consider this cheating as many people just use the first page of Google result and don't go into any further research mode at all!
What do you think about this?

[ron178]

There is a similar case with the Hyundai Exter. The Google search result is a Car Blog India page titled “Hyundai Exter to get 5-star NCAP safety rating” but when you open it, it becomes “Hyundai Exter to get 5-star NCAP safety rating?”

Shockingly enough, many people on the internet even fall for RushLane’s “Tata Harrier breaks NCAP barrier, scores 6 stars” April Fools’ prank from a couple of years ago.

IMO, a lot of the new-age media lack a certain sense of responsibility. I usually suggest that new car buyers be very cautious before trusting any of their content.

Originally Posted by saisree

IIRC, this was an April Fool's Article that came out during 1st April 20223. The title was changed to what it is now around the first week.

The April Fools’ article was by Car Blog India and still up as visible at the bottom of the OP’s screenshot. The article in question however is from ABP Live.

[saisree]

IIRC, this was an April Fool's Article that came out during 1st April 20223. The title was changed to what it is now around the first week.

[turbospooler]

Originally Posted by ron178

There is a similar case with the Hyundai Exter. The Google search result is a Car Blog India page titled “Hyundai Exter to get 5-star NCAP safety rating” but when you open it, it becomes “Hyundai Exter to get 5-star NCAP safety rating?”

The rabbit hole is getting really deep! I also tried to search "Hyundai Exter NCAP" and thankfully, didn't find any top results spewing non-sense, but then on closer inspection, found our errant news outlet churning garbage! This Somnath Chatterjee is a "journalist", but should be called something else as this is his 2nd article I found showing what his credibility actually is.
Check the Link.

Originally Posted by saisree

IIRC, this was an April Fool's Article that came out during 1st April 20223. The title was changed to what it is now around the first week.

That was a joke calling it a 6-star safety rated car, but here it is claiming to be 5-star safety rated car.

[Small Bot]

I have a probably noob question.

Do manufacturers like Maruti and Hyundai actually implicitly allow this to happen? Or explicitly pay off random reviewers to put up misleading posts like these? Do we know of any such instances where car manufacturers have been found to be hand-in-glove with these faux reviewers?

I mean, I find it hard to believe they don't have employees or outsourced agencies tracking such news.

[jomyboy]

Originally Posted by Small Bot

Do we know of any such instances where car manufacturers have been found to be hand-in-glove with these faux reviewers?

I don't think money would be exchanged, but yeah fashion magazine editors do get tons of "free stuff" and paid holidays/meals, don't think the automobile world is any different. Apple is known even to do the write-ups for the editors

[GTO]

Very sad to read about such gimmicks. When such lame news sources do this, they further lose credibility. Even if it was an April Fool's joke, the title they're feeding search engines is the older one.

Google is very smart & fast. If you properly update a page title, it almost immediately reflects on the search results. This is outright misleading. Am sure they got 1000 more clicks because of this, and that clearly matters more to them than their reputation.

[shancz]

They're just preying on sentiments and interests to get clicks. I would term it as a cheap shot.
There was a write up more than a year ago in GaadiWaadi about the new Himalayan and they had lifted content from one of TBHP threads, without permission or credit of course.
Since that day I skip any content from GaadiWaadi however enticing the title seems.
To me its the most apt way to do so.

[PearlJam]

It gets stranger. I typed "fronx gncap" as suggested by OP. This is what I see!



So is this a flaw (feature?!) in the Google search algorithm? It may not be specific to any news sources!

[greenhorn]

Not the first time this has been raised.
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techn...ting-ploy.html (Maruti Suzuki Fronx “6 star NCAP rating” - truth or lie cum Marketing ploy?)

I would assume that most maruti buyers are not aware of, or have superficial knowledge at best, (i mean why else would they buy such dangerous cars) and these sales guys are taking advantage of that.

[dicor]

These headlines were written as clickbait while staying within the law. They are immune from any legal action thanks to that question mark.

There are numerous other news websites and YouTube channels that excel at disseminating rumours and false information.

Even intelligent people frequently succumb to their propaganda. My 73-year-old father, who enjoys driving, is mechanically savvy and can fix old school cars and trucks, is constantly researching new models. He keeps sending me those links and requests a quote.

For instance, he asked me to find out about this Rs 3.5 lakhs BOLERO last week. It is easy for an auto enthusiast to know it is BAIC BJ40, not upcoming Bolero. Numerous websites and television channels feature BJ40 as a bolero, demonstrating how deeply ingrained these false rumours are. When a false rumour is documented everywhere, it becomes more powerful than the truth.





An IIM Ahmedabad graduate friend of mine forwarded this to the group on WhatsApp today.

https://delhibreakings.com/xuv500-ma...d-option-adas/


The point being that not everything on the internet is accurate and information must consumed responsibly and carefully.

[turbospooler]

Originally Posted by PearlJam

It gets stranger. I typed "fronx gncap" as suggested by OP. This is what I see!

Attachment 2503825

So is this a flaw (feature?!) in the Google search algorithm? It may not be specific to any news sources!

Oh my God! I think our title is also affecting the search! @GTO Sir, can we please modify the title, maybe the original one to avoid this bias?

Originally Posted by GTO

<pinging for drawing attention>

[greenhorn]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

The 6 star joke seems to be getting adopted by maruti sales folks. Much like the "land rover platform " Harrier, or the "Lamborghini speedometer" Beat. I doubt the average buyer knows enough to understand this is fake
Attachment 2439816

cross posting from the fronx review thread - an ad by a maruti sales exec on local classifieds - Incompetency or fraud - you be the judge!

[giri1.8]

Forget fake articles and dealer posts, this ad from Tata motors that implies 5 star rating for their cars, while in reality, two of the cars shown have 4 starts, while Safari/Harrier remains untested.

[ron178]

Another one from MotorOctane. They even used an unauthorised BNCAP logo and many believed it.