{"id":3277,"date":"2017-05-11T10:35:29","date_gmt":"2017-05-11T10:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpmudev.whitespark.ca\/google-remove-reviews\/"},"modified":"2024-10-28T16:06:04","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T22:06:04","slug":"google-remove-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/blog\/google-remove-reviews\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Did Google Remove Some of My Reviews?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re a small business owner who actively gets reviews, it\u2019s likely that you\u2019ve ran into a case where some of your reviews on your Google My Business listing randomly vanished. Google has an active algorithmic filter in place to remove reviews that violate their policies.<\/p>\n

Google\u2019s Review Filter Does Not Catch All Fake\/Paid Reviews<\/h2>\n

Before you get all excited thinking this filter is going to help remove the dozens of fake reviews you see on your competitor’s listings, it\u2019s important to know this filter does a horrific job at catching fake reviews. In addition to Mike Blumenthal\u2019s<\/a> and Jessie Low\u2019s <\/a>recent coverage of fake Google My Business reviews, here is a current example:\"\"How likely is it that this \u201cperson\u201d hired a tree service company in Indiana, an aquarium service in Florida, sold their car to a buyer in Louisiana and got some landscaping in Colorado? Also, Google must think that the fact that they just \u201chappen\u201d to be left on listings that are named as keywords is just a coincidence right? I come across cases like this every day and they are not hard to find.Turn your business into a review engine with the help of Reputation Builder; grow, manage, and market your reviews! Start your free trial today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What Does the Review Filter do?<\/h2>\n

The review filter runs periodically and takes down tons of reviews at once that they deem illegitimate. The filter does not run in real time which means you could have a review stick to your listing for months and then vanish at the same time as several other reviews. When the review filter runs we always get a ton of business owners posting over at the Google My Business forum<\/a> complaining about missing reviews.<\/p>\n

What Causes a Review to be Filtered?<\/h3>\n

A huge majority of the time reviews get filtered due to issues with the IP address of the person who left you the review. Here are some things that cause reviews to be filtered:<\/p>\n

Your customers share an IP address with someone who already left you a review.<\/strong>
\nI used to work for an agency that has a lot of clients that work for the same insurance company. Even though the offices for each agent are nowhere near each other, they all have the same IP address at work because they connect to their company\u2019s intranet. When we started asking clients to leave us reviews, the first few stuck but after a few the additional ones started to immediately get filtered. We then noticed even more disappear when Google\u2019s review filter ran.<\/p>\n

Your business offers WiFi\u00a0that customers connect to and you\u2019ve logged into your Google My Business account from this WiFi.<\/strong>
\nI personally have reviewed over 200 businesses. Some of the ones that got filtered were for Starbucks, McDonald’s, a hotel, and a movie theater. All these businesses have public WiFi for their customers. I did not<\/strong> leave the review while connected to their WiFi but because I was logged into my Google account when I accessed their WiFi, it left a trail.<\/p>\n

The review contains a URL.<\/strong>
\nURLs are not allowed in reviews and usually cause the review to get immediately filtered but if you\u2019re a more trusted reviewer, it might stick for a while and get filtered later.<\/p>\n

The review contains a word Google doesn\u2019t like, such as profanity or racial terms.<\/strong>
\nI wrote a review for a place in Seattle called \u201cBiscuit Bitch\u201d and using the word \u201cbitch\u201d in my review caused it to get filtered. As soon as I edited the review to remove the word, it became publicly visible.\"\"The person who wrote the review works for you.<\/strong>
\nRating your employer is against Google\u2019s guidelines<\/a> and usually Google can trace this type of thing due to the fact that you share the same IP address that they use to manage their Google My Business listing.<\/p>\n

You hired an SEO company to post reviews for you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You have an onsite review station (iPad, computer etc) at your location.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You are offering incentives for people who write you reviews. <\/strong>
\nThese don\u2019t generally get caught algorithmically by the filter but people report competitors for doing this all the time at the Google My Business forum and Google removes them.<\/p>\n

Is it Possible the User Deleted the Review?<\/h3>\n

Although it\u2019s possible that the user deleted the review they wrote you, I have never come across a case where this was the reason for the review disappearing. This is probably due to the fact that deleting a review on Google<\/a> isn\u2019t an overly simple process.<\/p>\n

Would I Lose My Reviews if Google Suspends the Listing?<\/h3>\n

If you receive a hard suspension<\/a>, it means the listing is no longer published on Google Maps so you would see all the reviews vanish along with the listing itself. However, if the listing got reinstated by Google My Business, the reviews would come back since they are still attached to the listing. If you get a soft suspension<\/a> it means the listing just became unverified and nothing would happen to the reviews but you would lose all your review responses since those were tied to the Google My Business account.<\/p>\n

Is it Possible the Reviews Moved to a Duplicate Listing?<\/h3>\n

Lots of businesses are unaware that multiple listings exist on Google for their business and generally duplicate listings cause ranking issues so you don\u2019t want them<\/a>. Reviews are actually stored in a separate database than the listings themselves so I\u2019ve never seen a case where reviews jumped from one listing to another automatically. Google does have the ability to manually move reviews from one listing to another depending on the scenario but this is usually only done upon request from the business owner.<\/p>\n

How Do You Tell If Your Personal Reviews Have Been Filtered?<\/h2>\n

If you are wondering how to tell if a review you wrote for a business has been filtered, you do this by:<\/p>\n