Reviews aren't

[Nati]

Hello!
I have a new business, I've uploaded my GMB account and everything seems fine, and even verified, I have some online pressence now (starting out, not big online presence yet),I've done some jobs and asked for reviews, and for some reason, the reviews are not showing, I have at least 5 reviews I know my costumers have sent, I've dug into Google Policy and everything seems great, I've had some experience with GMB so it's really weird, I think it happens because of a few reasons :
1. I have another business with a similar Name (same owner) but a different Business (Pest control, and the other one is cleaning, not even similar).
2. Business has not yet built trust online on the search engine, and the business is not credible yet.
what you guys think the problem is? and how can i fix that?
after asking google, I get an automated answer about my reviews violating their policies, which is not true, is there any way you guys handled somthing simillar?
thank you in advance !
thank you in advance !

 

[Dheeraj]

It is nothing but all due to their after effect of product reviews update. We manage many GBP's and on almost all we are facing this issue that new reviews are not showing up after 7th of December once they completed their update which lasted for 29 days.

Google Search Status Dashboard

status.search.google.com

 

[Chris_Andrews]

Google says the product reviews update was designed to evaluate:

...articles, blog posts, pages or similar first-party standalone content written with the purpose of providing a recommendation, giving an opinion, or providing analysis. It does not evaluate third-party reviews, such as those posted by users in the reviews section of a product or services page. (reference)

I studied the product review update quite a bit since it affected the news sites that I work with.

I don't think it's related to GBP reviews not surfacing. I suspect that's a totally separate issue.

That's not to say that something else didn't happen with GBPs. Perhaps they ramped up their AI evaluation of GBP reviews at the same time. It seems to be quite a mess right now,

Chris

 

[Dheeraj]

I have observed it with couple of product reviews updates earlier. I know Google mentioned (not relevant to third-party reviews) ) what you referenced above but I have strong feeling and reason to say that, it affects GBP reviews as well.

I agree to your second point that they might be experimenting with AI evaluation of reviews and it has messed up things.

 

[mattstephenskc]

Hello!
I have a new business, I've uploaded my GMB account and everything seems fine, and even verified, I have some online pressence now (starting out, not big online presence yet),I've done some jobs and asked for reviews, and for some reason, the reviews are not showing, I have at least 5 reviews I know my costumers have sent, I've dug into Google Policy and everything seems great, I've had some experience with GMB so it's really weird, I think it happens because of a few reasons :
1. I have another business with a similar Name (same owner) but a different Business (Pest control, and the other one is cleaning, not even similar).
2. Business has not yet built trust online on the search engine, and the business is not credible yet.
what you guys think the problem is? and how can i fix that?
after asking google, I get an automated answer about my reviews violating their policies, which is not true, is there any way you guys handled somthing simillar?
thank you in advance !
thank you in advance !

I can't tell you why this is happening; I just know that it's happening to many, if not most, business profiles including ours and that they will likely show eventually. For several months, Google was holding our reviews—ironically, the very best ones—for a few weeks before publishing them. These were reputable users with genuine experience with our business; the reviews were full of relevant details; and we didn't incentivize them. I'm not sure anyone really knows why this happens. The best advice I can give you is, keep following Google's guidelines and best practices, make sure your customers/clients know how important reviews are to your business, and be patient.