Number and Frequency of Google Reviews

[Genna_Local_SEO]

This is not something we do often, but my agency reached out to a few clients today and asked that they leave reviews. We received 5 reviews from clients all immediately after we asked. So that's 5 reviews in an hour on a random day.

My question is, does that matter? Will Google think these reviews are fake because of the timing and frequency? I wouldn't question it if we got reviews more frequently, but there was a 4-month gap between our 5 new reviews and the last review we received.

Thanks!

 

[Phil Rozek]

There’s a good chance some or all of those reviews will go into the meat grinder. Unless your agency typically gets a lot of Google reviews, in which case the sudden uptick doesn’t look as odd.

In my experience, those reviews are somewhat less likely to get filtered if the reviewers are higher-level Local Guides.

What happens after you get that blast of reviews also seems to matter. If you sorta keep up the pace, or at least keep a trickle of reviews coming in, then the initial 5-review blast won’t appear as odd. Even if some or all of those reviews are filtered initially, if you keep some Google reviews coming in, they might be un-filtered later. Reviews can get un-filtered and re-filtered.

You’ll want to establish a clear pattern of asking for and getting reviews, to establish a baseline. If you can’t do that, you’ll want to spread out your requests more.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Can you check back in with us and let us know if they end up getting filtered?

 

[Genna_Local_SEO]

Thank you!

 

[JoyHawkins]

In my experience, blasts of positive reviews rarely get filtered so I wouldn't stress about it. I had a client of mine recently have their competitor's reviews jump from 6 to 62 in the matter of 4 days and none of them got filtered.

Do let us know though - I'm always interested to see how things change.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

In my experience, blasts of positive reviews rarely get filtered so I wouldn't stress about it. I had a client of mine recently have their competitor's reviews jump from 6 to 62 in the matter of 4 days and none of them got filtered.

Do let us know though - I'm always interested to see how things change.

This is also my feeling.

 

[Genna_Local_SEO]

Thanks everyone - I appreciate the input and hearing your experiences. I'll definitely keep you posted as we go.

We ended up with 6 5-star reviews today which is awesome. We're a small agency outside of Cleveland, OH. Our local rankings currently are not the best; however, I'll let you know how things shape up.

 

[Tyson Downs]

There’s a good chance some or all of those reviews will go into the meat grinder. Unless your agency typically gets a lot of Google reviews, in which case the sudden uptick doesn’t look as odd.

In my experience, those reviews are somewhat less likely to get filtered if the reviewers are higher-level Local Guides.

What happens after you get that blast of reviews also seems to matter. If you sorta keep up the pace, or at least keep a trickle of reviews coming in, then the initial 5-review blast won’t appear as odd. Even if some or all of those reviews are filtered initially, if you keep some Google reviews coming in, they might be un-filtered later. Reviews can get un-filtered and re-filtered.

You’ll want to establish a clear pattern of asking for and getting reviews, to establish a baseline. If you can’t do that, you’ll want to spread out your requests more.

This hasn't been my experience. I have a lot of clients get a sudden influx of reviews similar to this and even more, and they reviews have alawys stuck. I think you'll be fine, but do report back and let us know what happens.

 

[Genna_Local_SEO]

Wanted to give a quick update:

9/14 - we received (8) 5-star reviews
9/18 - (1) 5-star review
9/19 - (1) 5-star review

While we have experienced some drops in keyword rankings, I can't see a direct effect from these reviews. There's been a lot of shakeup with algo changes, and I think that's having a bigger effect.

I did notice, however, that our rankings dropped slightly this past week, but have since recovered, which is what's making me think it's the algo update, not reviews causing this.

I'll let you know if anything else changes within the next week or so. Thank you again to everyone who contributed and shared their experiences.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Wanted to give a quick update:

9/14 - we received (8) 5-star reviews
9/18 - (1) 5-star review
9/19 - (1) 5-star review

While we have experienced some drops in keyword rankings, I can't see a direct effect from these reviews. There's been a lot of shakeup with algo changes, and I think that's having a bigger effect.

I did notice, however, that our rankings dropped slightly this past week, but have since recovered, which is what's making me think it's the algo update, not reviews causing this.

I'll let you know if anything else changes within the next week or so. Thank you again to everyone who contributed and shared their experiences.

Any reviews filtered yet?

 

[Phil Rozek]

This hasn't been my experience. I have a lot of clients get a sudden influx of reviews similar to this and even more, and they reviews have alawys stuck. I think you'll be fine, but do report back and let us know what happens.

Yeah, I've seen it go that way, too. Sometimes the blasts do hold. Even if the wave of reviews stayed put (for now), my follow-up question/concern would be: are they likely to get filtered next time Google does a major update of its filter?

That happened in 2012. Until then, Google filtered pretty much no reviews. Then they removed old reviews and new reviews by the truckload.

If you can keep up the fast pace of reviews, great. Those probably won't get filtered. But, in my experience, there is no reason not to spread out the review requests a little more. Also, that looks less strange to anyone reading those reviews.

 

[Genna_Local_SEO]

Nope, none of our reviews were removed - I'm shocked!