Any new advice to prevent reviews from getting filtered?

[PaulSteinbrueck]

Hi fellow local SEOs, we continue to experience reviews posted to our GBP and our clients GBPs getting filtered by Google.

I read Joy's helpful article Why Are My Google Reviews Not Publishing? - Sterling Sky Inc which includes 3 things that might cause Google to filter a review. We're seeing reviews getting filtered that don't have any of those 3 factors. We've even had clients include photos of the work the company did for them and Google still filtered the review.

So, I'm just wondering if anyone has any new advice to prevent legit reviews from getting filtered by Google.

• One thing I'm guessing Google's review filter might factor in is how many reviews the reviewer has previously posted. Someone with no previous reviews is probably more likely to have their first review filtered. But then what's the solution? Posting several reviews for several companies in a short period of time after having not posted any previous reviews seems like it would raise flags too.
• Does posting reviews from an account that's associated with other Google properties (Gmail, Google Analytics, Google Docs) help?
• Is the length of the review a factor?
• Are there certain words that are red flags?

Hoping for more than guesswork and speculation but maybe some people have tested or looked for correlations to see what gets filtered and what does not.

Thanks!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Paul,

Have you checked this one out?

GBP Reviews Missing, Why and What Can You Do About It? - Local University

Ben Fisher reviews the issues with Google reviews not publishing, some insights into WHY, and information on troubleshooting the issue.

localu.org

 

[PaulSteinbrueck]

Hi Colan, thanks for the link! I had not read that article yet.

I had read Joy's reply here Missing Reviews/ Reviews Disappearing in which she said

One thing to try is instead of sending customers a link to review you with, tell them to search for you on Google and leave a review. That *might* help - it's worth testing.

To be candid, I'm not eager to test this idea because it adds 2 additional steps to the review process, which will likely result in some people getting confused or not trying to post a review at all. I will give it some more thought, but I'm hoping there might be some other tactics to consider as well.

 

[PaulSteinbrueck]

Any other suggestions?

 

[Tim Colling]

To be candid, I'm not eager to test this idea because it adds 2 additional steps to the review process, which will likely result in some people getting confused or not trying to post a review at all.

I have the same concern. For many people who are not really familiar with "Google stuff", this could create a new source of resistance. Ugh. <sigh>