It appears that Google has removed more reviews this past week.

[keyserholiday]

I have seen two threads on Reddit where people are seeing review counts dropping.
Thread 1
Thread 2

Is anybody else seeing reviews being removed?

 

[rustybrick]

crickets

 

[keyserholiday]

crickets

It might be that the review count is off.
review count

 

[keyserholiday]

I am seeing more complaints that the review account is off.

 

[Soufiane]

Happening to me as well. It since 10 days more or less with an heavy drop since friday.

 

[keyserholiday]

Happening to me as well. It since 10 days more or less with an heavy drop since friday.

This a large scale issue. Google is aware and working on it.

 

[Soufiane]

This a large scale issue. Google is aware and working on it.

I can't see an official communication from google. How do you know that they are working on it ?

 

[keyserholiday]

I can't see an official communication from google. How do you know that they are working on it ?

I heard it from our LSA reps.

 

[Soufiane]

I heard it from our LSA reps.

for my own knowledge what's an LSA reps ?

 

[JS Girard]

for my own knowledge what's an LSA reps ?

LSA = Local Service Ads. A special type of local ads. I believe these are not available in France yet, as they are not in Quebec either.

 

[Soufiane]

LSA = Local Service Ads. A special type of local ads. I believe these are not available in France yet, as they are not in Quebec either.

Ok that's just agent, nothing from oficial sources.

 

[keyserholiday]

Ok that's just agent, nothing from oficial sources.

Correct no official communication yet. All official statements have to be written and approved by legal and then passed to the Product Managers and passed to the Prodict Experts. I used to be a Product Expert.

 

[garrisonagency]

At this point, missing legit, hard-earned reviews for local businesses seems less like a bug and more like a feature. This has been going on for years and Google is getting worse about doing anything about it. It used to be we could submit a screenshot of the missing review, because it still showed up for the person who left it. Now even though it does still show up for the person who left the review - when we submit screenshots and there's absolutely no policy violation whatsoever, we just get a generic canned response. Google does not care about small businesses. Period.

 

[keyserholiday]

At this point, missing legit, hard-earned reviews for local businesses seems less like a bug and more like a feature. This has been going on for years and Google is getting worse about doing anything about it. It used to be we could submit a screenshot of the missing review, because it still showed up for the person who left it. Now even though it does still show up for the person who left the review - when we submit screenshots and there's absolutely no policy violation whatsoever, we just get a generic canned response. Google does not care about small businesses. Period.

You are taking about different things here.
A. There is a glitch where review counts are off and no reviews have been removed.
B. Google has done sweeps and removed reviews using AI. They just like Yelp put removed reviews back.
C. Google “support,” sucks. What you need to do is after you open a ticket, post on the help forum so a Product Expert can offer advice or escalate the issue for you.

 

[garrisonagency]

You are taking about different things here.
A. There is a glitch where review counts are off and no reviews have been removed.
B. Google has done sweeps and removed reviews using AI. They just like Yelp put removed reviews back.
C. Google “support,” sucks. What you need to do is after you open a ticket, post on the help forum so a Product Expert can offer advice or escalate the issue for you.

I know what you're saying is true from a technical perspective, but from an end user perspective, it's one issue.

From the perspective of an agency explaning this to business owners who are working hard to earn more reviews or just getting started, it's one issue. From the perspective of a searcher/potential customer looking up which local plumber or chiropractor or whatever to use - the one with 100 reviews or the one with 150 reviews - it's one issue.

End users - consumers and small business owners who don't know SEO - don't care about technicalities or A or B. They just know that they work hard to earn positive reviews and it seems like a fruitless effort because for a myriad of reasons, they disappear or never show up in the first place, even though they have screenshots from their customers that the review was left.

As for C - I do that, too. I know how it works. I do it all for my customers, that's why I get riled up when this same issue comes around yet again and again, for whatever reason. It gets old.

 

[Soufiane]

I honestly think that their IA stuff is killing small business owners.