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April 7, 2024
Google Reviews are the lifeblood of small businesses.
Many decisions consumers make today are influenced by reviews and recommendations from people they know.
Reviews help with brand awareness and social proof. The more reviews and higher rated a business has the higher it ranks in search engines, equating to more organic visibility and local sales.
And it's important to remember, your customers research and shop for services like you do. If you're like most people, you read a couple of reviews before making a decision or filter for highly-rated businesses.
So what do you do when your Google business reviews are not showing up? How can you get back your rating to continue generating leads?
First we should understand,
Google's number one rule is for businesses to have genuine and honest reviews.
Your reviews should be from real customers (not friends, family, or bots) who share their experiences after using services and products. It needs to be relevant and not made up, so if you've got a website providing locksmith services, your reviews should be correlated to the service.
Do not encourage employees to leave reviews or incentivize (gifts or payments) customers to leave good reviews, as Google will flag those due to authenticity.
Unfortunately, reviews can be removed and flagged for various reasons we'll discuss further in this article.
False positives do happen, and your authentic customer reviews can be accidentally removed by Google's automated systems. But before you decide that is what happened, see if any of the reasons could be valid as to why your Google reviews are not showing up.
Most causes are due to violations and delays, but are not limited to:
As mentioned earlier in the article, dishonest and inauthentic reviews are harmful to your business.
An example would be a review stating unrelated services or products you do not offer or even a review when you're business is not operating.
You should not buy Google reviews. Most of them are bot accounts with false profiles. It does not look good when your business has been around for three months with thousands of reviews.
Customers can tell as they read through many of them before making decisions.
Fake reviews may lead to the removal of your Google Business Profile.
Google likely hasn't ranked your business profile yet. Once customers organically search for your business, ranking higher will become easier. Reviews, advertising, and marketing also help.
Reviews help with social proof, advertising brings visibility, and marketing raises brand awareness.
Reviews can be marked as spam if written by fake accounts or if the content is unrelated to services provided by the respective Google business profile or incentivized (paid for).
Bots or competitors attempting to sabotage fall under fake accounts. They could also be accounts created by business owners. Avoid this at all costs! As it could harm your listing forever.
Google's automated systems can quickly identify these, and at the same time, they are easy for users to report for Google to review. You can read more about Prohibited and Restricted content for Google reviews here.
If customers make an edit to their reviews, they undergo the same filtering process as writing a new Google review.
Google's filtering process usually works as follows :
Basically, it goes through its checklist for identifying spam reviews, so if the edit contains any violation, it will be missing from Google.
It can also be true that the account or customer that left the review removed it from your Google Business Profile. You can only really find this out if they're regular customers or somebody you know.
They, too, can lose their accounts if they violate Google's review policies.
If you deactivate your account for a long period, your Google Business Profile may need to be verified again.
Lack of activity, inconsistent changes to a business profile, or violation of Google's Business Profile guidelines can lead to losing your verified account, thus resulting in Google reviews missing.
When your account is no longer verified, Google will not rank your business on Google Maps or Google Search if it is not verified. It will be harder for prospective customers to find your business.
You should do your best to routinely update your profile so your customers and Google's systems know you're still in business.
If you change your business address on Google, your reviews are transferred automatically to your new location. So long as you don't make significant changes like:
Your Google reviews should remain intact, as they're tied to your business profile and not an address.
In this situation, it is always better to reach out to Google for support.
Check(search) if your business has multiple listings, as they could be confusing your customers and having them leave a review on the wrong listing.
Creating duplicate business profiles can easily happen when you have multiple personal or business accounts.
Best to always check if you only have one listing.
Google could inadvertently remove your active listing with the most reviews.
These are definitely marked as spam under Google's filtering system. Most customers would not leave a review in a link, and it would not be a good experience for users, as fake accounts could promote unrelated services on other business listings.
If your business profile is active, you should be fine to continue collecting reviews while waiting for your missing ones to appear again.
You can make up for missing reviews using Reputigo's review generation software to get more reviews. It's quick and easy to set up and mostly automated.
It is also worth noting consistent and new reviews always help with ranking higher on Google.
Old reviews can be red flags to potential customers and even Google if your account is inactive for too long with no reviews or updates.
You should always ask for reviews, as most businesses average a 30 percent response rate whenever they ask. Our review generation software could greatly improve those odds and capture more reviews with follow-ups.
Understand if your reviews or customers have violated Google's guidelines. Reviews should always have relevant content to the services your business provides.
If it's a matter of verification, be patient and ensure your business profile has the correct address, phone number, and website.
To be on the safer side, encourage your customers to leave reviews to maintain your ranking and competitive edge.
Depends on the reason behind the removal.
If it's a violation, it could be permanent or temporary.
If you made recent requests to have customers update their reviews, it could be temporary that your reviews are not appearing.
Most temporary removals can reappear within 24-48 hours if they meet Google's guidelines.
There really is no guarantee other than getting new and more reviews, as it would be in your control to ask customers to leave them. Reputigo's review generation software can help.
