Negative Review Attack Based On Personal Life Issue

[Lanerizz]

Hi everyone, have a client getting multiple 1 star reviews, mostly with no context, all in a 1-2 period. The twist is the users are all real, but they are not customers. They are leaving the business 1 star reviews based on something that happened in the personal family life of the owner.

Is there a recommended course of action for how to explain to Google what is happening and why the reviews should be taken down? if there's a news article, would that help?

My understanding of the workflow is:
1. Report the reviews
2. Submit case to Google Business Team with screenshots and details
2. Submit situation in Google Business Forum with case number

Anything I am missing or any tips appreciated.

 

[ElizabethRule]

Do the users mention the personal matters in the reviews specifically? If the review content is off-topic, that would help prove the case for removal. Another thing you can do is have other Google users flag the reviews as off-topic.

Yes, the forum is where you will want to go eventually if Google does not take action and you feel your case is strong enough to escalate.

 

[DavidGetty]

I read Joy say once that hardest review to remove is one without any context. There’s no way to prove that it’s not a real customer leaving an honest rating.

 

[Lanerizz]

They didn't mention the situation specifically. The result here ended up being recruiting a lot of past customers to leave good reviews. So been okay actually! Appreciate the responses

 

[DavidGetty]

They didn't mention the situation specifically. The result here ended up being recruiting a lot of past customers to leave good reviews. So been okay actually! Appreciate the responses

That is good news.

What method did you find successful to get past customers to leave reviews?

 

[Lanerizz]

Literally calling and texting asking them to help haha. It was such a unique scenario where the owner was personally being attacked that people were more than willing to come to his defense. Plus hes a home builder so the relationships there are a bit stronger.

 

[JS Girard]

A negative review bombs is reportable on the forum for trying out an escalation, especially if there's other suspicious details (.e.g. several of the accounts have left only that one review, some names have similarities...), but just reporting the individual reviews is usually useless (though I've seen one instance where the majority of them were deleted before we did anything).