Google Email about a review talks about UGC restrictions: normal?

[JS Girard]

We recently had a client (Plastic surgeon in Montreal) complain about a review not showing.

Eventually (two weeks of repeatedly prodding Support), we received the following email:

Thanks for reaching out to us.
We reserve the right to disable certain user-generated contributions for individual Business Profiles and business categories. Some Business Profiles have been temporarily disabled from adding new reviews or replies to reviews. We are closely monitoring affected Business Profiles but are not able to provide an estimate on when we can restore the functionality.

Although we were aware of google having the ability and wherewithal to do so, this is the first time hearing about this.

Now, I have many questions:

• Could this email be misleading and refer specifically to that review and not a restriction of all reviews?
  • Because of complicated communication issues, I have no idea whether the current lapse of seven months since the last review is generally abnormal.
  • It is NOT abnormal in so far as we've had clients who have refused to do any review efforts for years (or they just assume "five stars. job done forever"), but I do not know about this client specifically.
• Specifically, could this be linked to the word "breasts" in the review, especially in combination with "nailed"?
  • There have been stupider keyword blocks before!
  • We've had posts and services blocked before in that vertical because of that word (or to be precise, it's french version), as well as words like"buttocks" and in other verticals for "Clitoris" (for a sex health clinic) and "urine"/"excrements" (in pest control).
• By extension, could a general presence of that word have triggered an overall block of reviews?
• This client has repeatedly asked to report negative reviews in the past. Could this have triggered a flag intended for negative review attacks?

 

[Stefan Somborac]

Hi @JS Girard - Regarding posting restrictions, the document Overview of Google Business Profile policies states:

When user contributions to a profile are consistently unhelpful, harmful, off-topic or generally violate Google Policies, we may limit or suspend user generated content for that profile. An example would be a series of poor reviews for a business for reasons not related to the business itself.

Any cases I've seen were all what is described in that last sentence. E.g. a business is involved in an incident that gets negative news coverage and then it suffers a rash of negative reviews from the general public (not customers) about that incident. Google will turn off the option to leave reviews until the incident blows over.

A review with language, as you've described, is likely to get blocked. A single review isn't going to trigger posting restrictions, IMO. But if all the reviews contain that kind of language, and the reason the client hasn't seen a review for the last seven months is because they're all getting blocked, then it's possible that there is a posting restriction on the profile.

I recommend that you ask in the Community Forum. Be sure to include your Case ID. A Product Expert can escalate the question to Google and can usually find out if there is in fact a restriction on the profile (and when the restriction expires).