My client went from averaging 20 new reviews a month to 3 a month and can no longer get posts to publish.

[Claudia]

I had a issue with a clients profile who is a restaurant. They were hit will around 18 fake spam reviews, most likely a bot issue. After several attempts with Google they were able to recognize the fake reviews and removed them all. Since that day the new number of reviews that have come in are significantly lower. My client was averaging 20 new Google reviews a month and now they receive 3 on average. In addition to the reviews not publishing, I am no longer able to get a new post to publish. The posts are not rejected they are just not published. I have a support case that is open and every time they publish the posts the new one has the same issue. I can't keep reaching out to Google to publish the posts. They are not getting rejected. I have tested several scenarios where I only post 3 words and that won't publish.

I really believe that since the day Google removed the fake reviews that all these other issues started. The client has a very trendy and upscale restaurant in Downtown Detroit and should be averaging more then 3 new reviews a month. It is hard for me to get Google to recognize the issue since there are some reviews that post.

 

[keyserholiday]

Was the review attack part of the gift card extortion? Try creating a post without an image and see if it goes through.

 

[Claudia]

Was the review attack part of the gift card extortion? Try creating a post without an image and see if it goes through.

It was around the time of the gift card extortion however, the client never was extorted. I just posted a 4 word post with no image.

However, the post is never marked rejected on the profile. So if I use a third party tool that schedules out the posts, I do not receive an email that states the above.

I am 100% certain that this post issue occurred at the same time the negative reviews were removed.


I also want to point out that I had a friend leave the business a review. They had visited the restaurant within the year and had a image of the food they ate. The review was left in August but did not publish until October 6th.

 

[Claudia]

I asked the reviewer if he had visited the restaurant recently or if he had left other reviews but he said he did not leave any other reviews nor did he visit the restaurant. Google may have updated their spam algorithm to display reviews that had images attached. Just a thought regarding your other thread in which reviews are showing up months later.

 

[recurpost]

Try posting using a third-party google my business post scheduler. They may get a meaningful response from Google in case the posts fail.

Never mind, I noticed your reply above said that the tool you use does not send an email. That usually means the post gets rejected later on. Do you get a link to the post in that tool? If you do then what happens when you click on that link?

 

[Claudia]

I have a open case with Google right now. The posts are automatically getting rejected as spam no matter what I post. However, they do not have the rejected label. When I contact support they publish the posts. I can't keep contacting support to get a post to publish. Is this a known issue with Google? Below is the email I get. He states that he is going to reinstate the posts but the root problem is not getting looked at.




Hi Claudia,
Greetings from the Google Business Profile Support team. I hope you’re doing well.
This email is in regard to your concern about the Google Posts that got rejected from your business profile “PAO Detroit", located at 114 West Adams Ave., Suite 200, Detroit, MI 48226, United States. Please do not worry, I’d be happy to help you with that.

Thank you for your response. The post ID: "2514253735914922531" is not live and there is a new post ID: "5791137956702963584" with no image and it is not visible on Google.

Before I reply to your email, I already escalated your query to the specialist team requesting them to reinstate both the posts on your profile. I’ll get in touch with you once I receive any information from them.


If you’d like more help on this issue, reply to this email. We’ll be happy to help! For help with other issues, you can always reach us via our Help Center.
Good luck with your business and be safe!
Sincerely,
Joshua

 

[keyserholiday]

Go post in the help center and include the case id in the subject line. You can private message me the link and I will get somebody to assist you.

 

[Claudia]

Go post in the help center and include the case id in the subject line. You can private message me the link and I will get somebody to assist you.

Will do thank you

 

[Claudia]

Will do thank you

@keyserholiday where is the help center? I'm sorry I am a new member.

 

[keyserholiday]

Here is the link. It was also linked at the bottom of the email Google sent to you. "If you’d like more help on this issue, reply to this email. We’ll be happy to help! For help with other issues, you can always reach us via our Help Center."

 

[Claudia]

Oh you meant the Google help center! Yes I am familiar with that.

 

[keyserholiday]

Please post there as soon as you can.

 

[Claudia]

Please post there as soon as you can.

I sent you a message with the thread. Thank you very much.

 

[keyserholiday]

Yep, I got it and ask my nanny bot expert to take over.

 

[ehg]

Hi Claudia, I'm the nanny bot expert mentioned by Keyserholiday.
Is there any option to reach you privately ?

 

[Claudia]

I wanted to add in this thread that now the Pao profile is unable to respond to any reviews. I reply using our Reputation Arm Dashboard and have also tried by replying directly on the Google profile. They never publish.

 

[keyserholiday]

That's interesting. I had somebody also state that somebody was unable to reply to reviews yesterday too.

 

[Claudia]

According to Helmut Geissler he is aware of this issue. He has a client that had this issue and it also began 2 months ago.

 

[keyserholiday]

According to Helmut Geissler he is aware of this issue. He has a client that had this issue and it also began 2 months ago.

He is aware of which issue? You have 3 of them.

 

[ehg]

I confirmed Claudia privately being aware (and dealt) a German case where neither the primary owner nor any other admin was & is able to get any review resposes published (there are not error messages indicating any problem to the responding account- it seems the responses fall in a black hole at Google)

And this happens regardless of the content of the response. - Not even a response like "Danke" gets published.