Have you ever used the Internet to find reviews of a restaurant you were considering eating at? Have you ever used it to look at reviews for your restaurant or business?

If not then it is about time you did. Web sites are popping up almost daily now that enable anyone and everyone to say whatever they want about your business: the good, the bad, and the painful. While you cannot control what is put on these sites (and it just makes you look bad if you try to argue with what is written) it is important to know what is being said about your business.

You should know if there is something going on in your restaurant that is making people go home and log onto their computers to write about you. If it is something that is making that big of an impression than you need to know about it so that you can fix it. If your staff is bad, your atmosphere is off, or a food item is bad you should know. You cannot fix a problem if you do not know it exists.

It isn’t always bad things that are written either. Sometimes people are so pleased with the food or service that they receive that they want to let everyone know. It is important to know these things also, so you know what to continue doing and what staff members to commend.

Finally, it is always a good thing to know what your web presence is, especially the part you cannot control (go here to learn more about the part you can control). You never know who is dismissing your business simply based on what they have read online.

 
The best way to find out if your business is mentioned online is to simply Google the name, after that you can look for reviews for your area and on general review web sites. You can find these sites using Google as well, but here are just a few that I found:

http://www.restaurantcritics.com/

http://publicrestaurantcritic.com/

http://dine.com/cgi-bin/public/main.cgi

http://www.foodbuzz.com/