Google Review Removed - Anyone Seeing An Increase In Review Being Removed?

[Tim Colling]

In the past 24 hours, we are seeing a significant increase in reviews being removed from one of our clients. They had 65 reviews yesterday, and today 15 of those have been removed. Fourteen removed reviews were 4- or 5-star reviews, and one was a 1-star.

We wrote a custom app that monitors our clients' Google Business Profiles and notifies us with the details of any reviews that are removed. That app runs every 24 hours, and we're seeing more reviews being removed one at a time but 15 out of 65 is a major escalation.

I can't help but wonder whether someone is targeting these clients with a malicious campaign to remove their favorable reviews.

Does anyone have anything similar happening right now with their clients?

 

[mblumenthal]

In three businesses (that were reported) that are buying fake reviews I saw a similar drop between 5/9 and 5/14

 

[mblumenthal]

If you create a Google docs spreadsheet and include
business name
Maps URL
reviewer name
review content
and create and share a Google forum URL with me detailing the complaint I would be glad to escalate and see what happens

 

[Tim Colling]

If you create a Google docs spreadsheet and include
business name
Maps URL
reviewer name
review content
and create and share a Google forum URL with me detailing the complaint I would be glad to escalate and see what happens

Google forum URL = a post in the Google support forum?

 

[mblumenthal]

Here: Sign in - Google Accounts

 

[Tim Colling]

Here: Sign in - Google Accounts

Here you go: Major number of reviews removed - Google Business Profile Community
I will send you the review details privately.

 

[rustybrick]

So are we seeing reviews being removed in masses?

 

[rustybrick]

I see review complaints at Browse the Google Business Profile Community but I suspect there are always complaints about missing reviews in that forum? Missing reviews, in general, is not new. But it being more widespread, like you said, would be.

Keep me posted please.

 

[localboss]

Regarding the missing reviews, we can see when a Localboss user has less reviews that the previous visit, which happens occasionally, but we are not seeing any users loose reviews lately.

In case you wonder, we can't identify what specific review was removed (GBP's api doesn't allow to store the review for more than 30 days) but we are thinking of a way to be able to pinpoint a review that was at some point published in the profile.

 

[Lahsa H.]

I'm tracking what's going on with reviews activity for approximately 20 SABs and 35 storefronts. I haven't seen anything strange recently. Sometimes, reviews go missing, but it's been like that for 5-6 months. If we ask Google about the missing reviews, in 90% of cases they help us get them back.

 

[RobSEO]

Following up and bumping this older thread. Have a client in the legal niche whose reviews stay at a particular number. It's as if, when he gets new reviews, older ones are deleted? The problem being of course competitors have a higher number or reviews, which can be a ranking factor.

Any guidance on this? Noting these reviews are all legitimate clients.

 

[keyserholiday]

Following up and bumping this older thread. Have a client in the legal niche whose reviews stay at a particular number. It's as if, when he gets new reviews, older ones are deleted? The problem being of course competitors have a higher number or reviews, which can be a ranking factor.

Any guidance on this? Noting these reviews are all legitimate clients.

I am sorry but review counts are not a ranking factor.

 

[RobSEO]

I am sorry but review counts are not a ranking factor.

Seems there's some discrepancy here. Sterling Sky has it as a ranking factor with diminishing returns over a certain number. Does the Number of Google Reviews Impact Ranking? [Case Study]

 

[JoyHawkins]

Past ten review, it is review freshness that impact rankings, maintaining review freshness will naturally drive review numbers up, but this is a side effect.

Could not agree more. Review recency is something I feel like not a lot of people talk about. We did some testing around this one as well but it was a different article than the one mentioned earlier: Does Review Recency Matter for Google Rankings?

I see this often with core algorithm updates too - businesses without recent reviews take a hit.