My Google Review Was Taken Down Now What
Have you received a bully review, only to notice it has disappeared a few weeks afterwards? It'south a major bummer when y'all visit your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business organization – and I'll use both throughout this article) folio to detect that a big, beautiful 5-star review has gone missing – only where did it go?!
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As a small business organization owner, like you, I get excited when I receive that e-mail notification exclaiming that our great new customer has given us a 5-star review on our Google Business organization Profile page! It's a slap-up feeling to know that we've done a cracking chore, and our clients loved the service we provided them – and they want to tell everyone how bully our business is. If you're not getting any online reviews for your business, don't be afraid to ask customers to exit an honest review on your Google Business Profile folio
Example of a business organisation list with star reviews as displayed in a Google search
This postal service was inspired by an email from a customer. I had helped him create a straight link to the Google review box. He had been sharing the link with his clients and the Google Reviews were rolling in on a regular footing – considering he provides swell service. But this day, he awoke to find half dozen Google Business organization Profile reviews missing from his page. Oh no!
He wanted to know why the Google reviews were missing, how he could go the missing Google reviews back on his page, and what he could exercise to forestall more than Google reviews from being deleted.
Googling Missing Google Reviews
At Search Centered nosotros regularly monitor Google business organisation reviews for clients, so this is a normal procedure for us.
But in that location's a skillful chance y'all found this post via Google search – Obviously, the first stop in hunting downwardly the reason for missing Google reviews was to visit Google and do a quick search for "missing Google reviews." From this simple search, information technology is speedily obvious that this is a common problem experienced by many, many business owners. The Google search results are full of stories from business organization owners who have found that their Google Business Profile reviews have disappeared.
If you're asking "Why did my Google My Business organization reviews disappear?" The most common (and wide) answer – Google'south spam detection algorithm has flagged some of your reviews, and they accept been removed by Google.
Nosotros're happy to requite your online business reviews an in-depth evaluation to discover why your reviews are disappearing.
Reasons a Google Business concern Profile Review may have Disappeared
While Google doesn't outline every aspect of their spam detection algorithm, they do provide specific Google review content guidelines. If a Google review has been deleted from your business organization page, ask yourself the post-obit questions to aid narrow down the reason your Google Concern Profile review went missing. Google volition remove reviews that violate their review content guidelines.
1. Was there a URL in the review?
If there is a URL in the review, information technology's likely spam and will trigger the review for removal. We're a web pattern company, so some clients want to show off the awesome site we've built – we make a point to ask them non to include the URL, so it doesn't accidentally get flagged for removal. Instead, nosotros enquire for an boosted review write-upward that we tin can add to our website.
two. Was there a phone number in the review?
A phone number in the review is a big trigger for possible spam. At that place's no demand to accept a telephone number in a review.
3. Practise you have reviews in other places online?
If you lot have tons of reviews on Google My Business, but none on Yelp, Facebook, etc., this could be a cause for the deleted reviews. Simply, information technology's non natural and spontaneous if every single customer who reviews you leaves the review on Google My Business concern. This is a skilful indicator of spam – or maybe your over-coach your customers about how to leave a review for your business. Instead, mix information technology upwardly – ask for a review of your business on Facebook half of the time.
4 . Did the review announced elsewhere on the internet?
If the aforementioned review appears on Facebook, Yelp, or on a "testimonials" page on your website, the duplicate review on your Google My Business page could exist removed. Isn't it great when your customers dearest you And then much that they desire to tell everyone how great you lot are?!?! This is the downside – unless the customer writes unique reviews on each review website, you lot may risk multiple reviews being removed, not just on Google Business Profile.
five . Is the reviewer a manager of your Google My Business account or Google+ page?
If a review is written by a director of the business organisation'southward Google accounts, this could be seen as a conflict of interest by Google. Generally, the person managing your Google My Concern account is not a customer. They are likely an employee or a service provider. Reviews should be left past customers.
6. Is the reviewer your employee?
When an employee reviews their employer on Google Business Profile, this tin be seen as a conflict of interest – even if the employee has purchased your products or services. This practise is frowned upon considering many employers will crave that employees leave positive reviews or offer incentives for employees to get out reviews.
seven. Was the review written from your physical business organization location?
What's important here is the IP accost (used to identify the physical location of your calculator). If the review was written from an IP address used to manage your Google My Business business relationship, the spam filter could have been triggered.
viii. Was the review written from the same IP address every bit other reviews?
Like to the previous point, if many reviews are coming from the same IP accost outside of your business, the spam filers might exist triggered. If this is happening, the reviews are nigh likely spam or fake. There'southward no run a risk your business received 19 legitimate reviews from the same physical location.
9. Is there a "review station" prepare upwards at your business organization?
Call back what we talked nigh above – if all the reviews are coming from the IP address, they'll trigger the spam detector. It'south a better plan to give your customers a short review URL that's easy to retrieve and let them leave a review from their own cell phone.
10. Was your review written from a location that is As well far away from your business organisation location?
If your business sells products locally, but yous besides ship products across the country or across the world, you need to set upwardly your Google Business organization Profile account to recognize this fact. From inside your Google My Business account, you lot need to tell Google where you transport products. Go into the "I evangelize goods and services to my customers at their location" section and brand sure to setup united states and/or countries where you volition ships products.. This volition stop reviews from across the state (or world) from being flagged by Google.
11. Were there multiple attempts to post the same review?
If a review was flagged and deleted by Google, then the client adds the same review again – information technology will be removed once more.
12. Did your business recently receive a big number of reviews?
If your Google Business Profile page receives a rapid influx of a large number of reviews in a brusk time span, the spam detectors may be triggered. If you lot've read our blog post about getting more than Google reviews, make sure to only enquire a fraction of your customers at a time for a review. If y'all have a back-log of 500 customers to reach out to, and your Google My Business page gets hammered with l new reviews overnight, you'll sound some alarms.
xiii. Exercise many of your reviews originate from the same online location?
If y'all take a "Leave us a Review" page on your website, and you send all your customers to that page before they exit a review on your Google My Business page, your reviews may not be spontaneous enough. Google likes reviews that appear naturally "in the wild." It's likely that Google records the referring URL and sees that all of your reviews are coming from a fundamental hub. A better strategy is to send your clients an email with your Google review link. This manner, their electronic mail will be the referrer.
xiv. Do you lot accept multiple business organisation locations?
Do you have multiple locations and multiple Google My Business pages? Customers are great! They love your service and products and they want to tell the world nearly y'all. They love yous then much that they visit the Google Business Profile page for every location your business organization has in the metro area, eager to leave their review. Unfortunately, if the reviewer left the same review on multiple business locations, the duplicates (or all) will likely be removed.
15. Do y'all take an abnormally large amount of reviews on your Google Business Profile page?
If your business organisation has way more reviews than other businesses in your manufacture and city/area, this could be crusade for business organization. If your business is in rural a town of thou people (just a simple case), but you lot have 4000 business reviews, don't exist shocked when many of them get removed. I'g sure you make amazing sandwiches, but why does the pizza joint just have 8 Google Business Profile reviews?
16. Did the reviewer merely remove their review from your Google Concern Profile page?
A reviewer has the power to remove their reviews at a afterwards date. This i is pretty straight forward, and is one of the most common determinations I come to when monitoring Google My Business reviews for clients (sign up for our newsletter to get more tips about getting great online customer reviews and receive a re-create of our Google Review Backup template)
17. Does the reviewer have a completely blank Google account?
Fake profiles commonly practice not contain a name, photo, or other data. Real accounts are never completely bare. When a business gets tons of reviews from empty accounts, this is a trigger that the reviews were created by bots and are faux or paid.
18. Did the reviewer delete their Google account?
A user must accept a Google account to leave a Google Business Profile review. When a Google account is deleted, the associated reviews are deleted as well. As with a user deleting their review, a user deleting their Google account is 1 of the most common conclusions we come up to when monitoring Google reviews for clients.
19. Have you been active on Google My Business lately?
If you have not been active on Google Business concern Contour in a 6-month span, it's possible that your business has been unverified. Make sure to pay attending to your Google My Business organisation page on a regular basis. It doesn't accept a lot to stay agile on Google Business Profile. If nothing else, install the Google Business organisation Contour app (Android, iPhone) and reply to reviews and thank people when they exit a review of your business.
20. Do all of your reviews look and sound the same?
If all of your reviews are written from accounts with profile images, and all reviews use perfect grammar, perfect capitalization, and all mention your business organization by name – there'south a very good chance the spam alarms are going to become off. This is a problem I see frequently – and was the problem for the client I mentioned at the get-go of this postal service. Some business owners are TOO skilful at coaching their customers on leaving a review for their business organization – This is what happened with my customer. Ask for a Google review, just don't over-motorbus your customers how to go out a review and never offer a pre-fabricated review or a pre-made template for them to copy.
21. Was the review written in tertiary person?
A reviewer is only allowed to review their own experience with your business organization. Reviews are not allowed to retell the experience of a friend, family member, or a story they read elsewhere. Only first-person accounts are immune in reviews. The reviewer cannot go out a review on behalf of another person.
22. Was the review "clean?"
Profanity, hate speech, offensive language and personal attacks are not allowed in reviews. This type of content will definitely trigger the filters and the review volition be removed. If there are reviews on your Google My Business page that contains any of this type of language, you lot should asking to have the Google review removed ASAP.
23. Are you offering incentives for customers to go out reviews?
Exercise not offer discounts, coupons or costless products to entice customers to leave y'all a review. If Google notices, you may lose all of your reviews. When y'all offer an incentive, you are more likely to receive a positive review, incorrectly skewing the results. Do not offering incentives for reviews.
24. Are there multiple businesses located at the same address equally your business concern?
It's not uncommon that one person may operate multiple businesses from the aforementioned address, however, Google sees this as a ruddy flag – especially if you ain multiple businesses that are in closely related industries. If your businesses are both existent registered businesses, you can effort to get help from Google by scrolling all the way to the lesser of your Google Business organization Profile dashboard and clicking the "Assistance" link. If nothing else, you may want to utilize a suite number for each business concern, so they appear equally separate businesses to Google. Notation – This may not the all-time or the correct strategy for your specific business(es).
Is your Google Concern Contour Review missing because of a Google Error?
These are situations that can happen but are rare occurrences. If you're missing reviews on your Google My Business folio, i of the reasons in a higher place is much more probable to exist the reason for your missing Google reviews.
UPDATE – July 21st – Google announced that a bug did occur with Google Business Profile reviews disappearing from the local business profiles due to algorithmic updates with Google Maps aimed at removing fake reviews.
"In our ongoing efforts to remove fake reviews from Maps, we've experienced an increase in reviews existence removed from businesses. Nosotros are inspecting our tools and systems to ensure that whatsoever legitimate reviews are reinstated."
At present, this doesn't mean these reviews or any reviews deleted in the past will definitely come up back, just
25. Your Google Business concern Profile account may be affected by a Google Maps issues
Your Google Business Profile reviews may not be missing at all! You may only be experiencing a bug. Many small-scale business owners have reported experiencing this bug off and on for virtually a decade. To check if your Google Business Contour page is experiencing this bug – Log into your Google Business Contour account at http://business.google.com. Select your concern location that is having issues (if you have multiple locations). Click "Manage Location." Click "Edit" at the top right. Click "Google Maps" in the "Published On" department. This will open Google Maps. In the panel on the left, click "Advise an edit." Take hold of the map marker on the map at the right and wiggle information technology around just a piffling bit. Click "Submit." If your Google Business Contour folio is experiencing the Google Maps bug, the wiggle volition force Google to articulate the cache and "update" your location. It sounds silly, only give it a shot!
26. Google had a glitch when updating or bankroll upwardly software
Yes, it is possible that even a visitor equally big as Google tin have a glitch. Glitches are possible with every size system, no affair how large or how small.
27. A Google employee accidentally deleted your Google Business Contour review
This one is super-unlikely, but yeah, humans still need to be able to manually access systems that are designed to run apart. Why would an employee access your Google Business Profile folio manually? I don't know. It's probably unlikely a Google employee would ever need to access your specific Google Business Profile page. Can you lot think of whatsoever reason? No? That's why this scenario is very unlikely.
The "Google Deleted My Reviews" Conspiracy Theories
I desire to say upfront – I do non subscribe to a unmarried one of these conspiracy theories. Simply, I get a ton of emails from people challenge to have "proof" Google intentionally targets specific small-scale businesses and deletes their 5-star reviews. Of course, not a single one of these conspiracy theorists have really shared the proof with me, nor provided a step-past-pace tutorial nigh how they collected their "proof."
Conspiracy Theories:
- Google deletes reviews of businesses who do not use Google Ads to promote their business in Google search. The theory is that Google hopes these businesses will start paying to use Google Ads
- Google deletes reviews of the competition of businesses who do utilise Google Ads to promote their business. As above, the theory is that Google wants to forcefulness a small business to use Google Ads
- Google deletes reviews of businesses who are in direct competition with an area of their business
- Google deletes reviews of businesses who are in competition with their ain business partners
Again, I do non believe any of these theories, and non a single person has provided "proof" to back upwards a fraction of these theories.
If you've come to one of these conclusions, it may exist time to take a step back and hire someone to run the digital marketing aspects of your business organisation. Trust me, you lot'll be much happier running the day-to-day operations of your business and letting someone else take care of your brand's online reputation – and your business volition be better for it.
Helpful and Trustworthy Reviews
Google aims to provide "recommendations that are helpful and trustworthy." Google'southward spam algorithm helps to ensure they tin provide the all-time data possible. Unfortunately, sometimes real and honest reviews become swept up and disappear – and other times, information technology seems like information technology's well-nigh incommunicable to get Google to remove a fake or spam review.
Can I get the Missing Google My Business Reviews Back?
Unfortunately, once Google has removed a review from your Google Business Profile page, it is gone for good. There is no getting it back. Instead of worrying about getting missing reviews dorsum, focus on getting new 5 star reviews! That'south fourth dimension better spent.
Before you give up, nonetheless, check out tip #25 in a higher place to check if your Google My Business page is experiencing a bug.
Brand a Backup of Your Google Business Profile Reviews
Make it part of your regular concern process and start backing upwards your reviews, so you lot can analyze the reviews and to notice the reason a review is removed in the futurity. When yous get that notification e-mail of a new Google Business Profile review, copy the review and the details. When you observe a drop in your number of reviews, take a wait through your reviews to figure out which one(s) was deleted.
Sign up for our electronic mail series about online business reviews, and nosotros'll requite you a copy of our Google My Business review backup template – forth with many more than cracking tips for getting groovy online reviews from your customers.
The Takeaway
You shouldn't worry too much if few of your Google Business Contour reviews disappear. Focus on running your business organization and providing great service and products, then inquire happy customers to leave a review of your business. It's good practise to backup and monitor your reviews, and so perform an audit when reviews go missing, but don't lose any slumber over it. Just get out there and get another great review to replace the i that disappeared. Information technology should exist pretty uncomplicated – you're bully at what y'all exercise! Go on doing it. Let the piddling stuff take care of itself.
If yous actually tin can't allow it go – or it'due south actually bad – we can inspect your business concern profiles to discover why your reviews are disappearing .
Accept you lost reviews on your Google Business Profile page?
Tell us about your feel in the comments department beneath.
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Source: https://www.searchcentered.com/missing-google-reviews/#:~:text=Unfortunately%2C%20once%20Google%20has%20removed,That's%20time%20better%20spent.