Google Review Stars not changing?

[MrAllStar]

Can someone explain the google review system to me? I had one jerk give me a 1/5 rating who I don't know, and now I got 2 new ratings of 5/5, yet my Google Review shows 1/5 stars. Does this update? I'm having trouble getting business when people see 1/5 review. It's been like this for a week now. I would think my stars should be at 3/5.

Thank you

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Can someone explain the google review system to me? I had one jerk give me a 1/5 rating who I don't know, and now I got 2 new ratings of 5/5, yet my Google Review shows 1/5 stars. Does this update? I'm having trouble getting business when people see 1/5 review. It's been like this for a week now. I would think my stars should be at 3/5.

Thank you.

That's not normal behavior for Google I don't believe.

Do you have a link for us to look at?

 

[MrAllStar]

Thankfully I was able to find out that it appears to be a bug, and my reviews are in a stuck state. I have to get google to fix this internally. Very odd!

 

[schemjo]

I had this same question after a competitor left a fake review. This was Google's response:

I would like to inform that star rating is the overall rating of the business page which is influenced not only by 5 star reviews but the other factors like how well you optimize your business page, how often do you reply to the reviews, number of followers, updates on search result, crawling of your business page on Google and views your business page gets. It also depends upon the reviews posted by your customers on third party platforms from where Google collects its data. One more factor these algorithms consider is the accuracy of the business information and the richness of the content associated with the business.

​

I will advise you to ask more satisfied customer whom you have served to post their feedback on your business page. The more positive feedback you get, there'll be more chances of your review average getting improved. Do promote your Business Page on the third party websites like: Facebook, Twitter, Yelp etc. It'll also help you to boost your review average on third party website from where Google may be collecting its data. Let me know if you have any more doubts, I'll be more than happy to clarify.

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

@schemjo
Whoa... How long ago was that message? Before or after they dropped the baysian weighting on the review stars?

 

[MrAllStar]

Google left me some response about their "formula", didn't help at all! I have 5 reviews with 5 stars! and 1 fake 1 star review. My google review ranking is still 1.0/5.0, how is this possible? I'm not impressed with Google. Right now I'm pushing to have someone higher up look into this. Everytime someone looks at my page, I lose business if they see a 1 star rating.

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

@MrAllStar
When you say you're pushing to have someone "higher" look into this - what do you mean?

I'm asking because if I report this as a possible bug, I want to be sure I'm not crossing over with a colleague.

@MrAllStar & @schemjo - Can you provide me a business name & address where this is happening?

 

[schemjo]

They sent me that message last week so it's fairly recent.

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

@schemjo & @MrAllStar
If you'd like to PM the business listing (understandable if you want to keep that private), PM me and I'll ask Google for a clarification.
Will also ask about that email.

 

[bknapp]

I have had exactly the same thing happen. Now have 3 reviews. 1 x bogus 1 star review and 2 x 5 star reviews but only showing 1 star. If you found a solution would you mind sharing it with me. Thanks!

 

[JoyHawkins]

Hey Guys,

The average rating does not update in real time. So if you have a 1-star review and then get a few 5-star reviews, your average rating will still display low for several days.

It generally takes 3-7 days for the average rating to update once you get new reviews.