Reviews from other professionals only option, but Google removing them now - help?

[bdegrossa]

I have an agency serving psychologists and therapists. The ethics of our industry prevent my clients from asking their clients for reviews. In general, for this reason, review volume is low in our industry. Professionals review each other from time to time. If one therapist refers clients to another and they hear good things about the work, they may write a review.

This has been fine for years, however, now Google seems to either be removing reviews that have been there for years or not accepting them.

For those following ethics guidelines, this pretty much prevents them from getting ANY reviews!

There are those who violate ethics guidelines---asking clients for reviews---giving themselves an advantage.
This rewards the wrong behavior.

One of my clients had 3 professional reviews removed recently. He said this: "Those reviews had been there for 1-2 years, and they were written by colleagues who made it clear they were clinicians (i.e., they did not pretend to be clients). Only one of the three was a colleague whose practice I also reviewed (so it does not seem to be a matter of "review exchange")."

@Claudia - I've watched your interviews with @JoyHawkins and Darren Shaw. Do you have any advice on this?

 

[Bartosz_PRD]

I would treat this as two separate questions: review-policy risk and evidence quality. The ethics issue matters, but Google support usually needs a much narrower packet than “our industry cannot ask clients for reviews.”
For each removed review, I would preserve a small case file before anything else changes:
1. the review text, rating, approximate original publish date, and removal date if known
2. reviewer name/profile URL if visible, plus whether the reviewer is a clinician, referral partner, supervisor, colleague, or shared-practice contact
3. whether the reviewer also received a review from the business owner or the same practice
4. whether the wording says or implies direct patient/client experience versus professional referral/peer knowledge
5. screenshots from GBP showing review counts before/after, if available
6. prior support case IDs and any Google response language
7. whether the affected profiles recently changed category, practitioner name, address, website, ownership, or review link usage
The distinction I would make in the support note is not “we deserve an exception because healthcare reviews are hard.” I would keep it more concrete: these were not incentivized, not fake, not requested from patients where that would violate professional ethics, and the reviewer relationship was a professional referral/colleague relationship disclosed in the review wording.
One risk to check carefully is mutual review language. Even if only one of the three involved a two-way review, Google’s filter may be grouping the pattern if several professionals in the same local network review each other, especially if wording is generic. If the reviewer’s text reads like a testimonial from direct treatment rather than professional knowledge, that may also create ambiguity.
For new reviews, I would be careful not to coach wording, but I would want the reviewer to naturally disclose the relationship: for example, that they know the clinician professionally, have referred cases, or have observed their work in a professional context. That gives support a clearer distinction from patient solicitation while avoiding anything that looks like review manipulation.

 

[keyserholiday]

These types of reviews have never been fine. Google doesn’t personally check each review word-for-word when they are posted. These reviews, while able to be posted and remain live, are a TOS violation. Google removes these types of reviews when they are posted. I typically see this type of review with lawyers and law firms.

Here is the link to the TOS.

• Content that is based on a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest may include current or former employment, a contractual or consultory relationship, or other professional or personal affiliations that demonstrate a conflict of interest (such as industry competitors, familial relationships, etc.).

Google is cracking down and enforcing the TOS.

 

[Bartosz_PRD]

That makes sense, and I should have made that boundary clearer.
If Google treats the professional affiliation itself as a conflict-of-interest signal, I would not build the case around “these should be restored because they are professional reviews.” The safer use of the evidence file is to understand exactly what was removed, stop relying on a review source that is likely to keep being filtered, and avoid making the pattern worse.
For an agency managing therapy or psychology profiles, I would separate the work into two tracks:
1. preserve the removed-review history so the client understands what happened and does not keep repeating the same request
2. build future reputation assets outside of GBP where professional referral context can be disclosed without asking Google to treat it as a normal customer review
So yes, if the relationship falls under the conflict-of-interest language, the practical advice is probably to document the removals, avoid trying to recreate that review pattern, and move the reputation strategy somewhere less likely to create a policy problem.

 

[bdegrossa]

These types of reviews have never been fine. Google doesn’t personally check each review word-for-word when they are posted. These reviews, while able to be posted and remain live, are a TOS violation. Google removes these types of reviews when they are posted. I typically see this type of review with lawyers and law firms.

Here is the link to the TOS.

• Content that is based on a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest may include current or former employment, a contractual or consultory relationship, or other professional or personal affiliations that demonstrate a conflict of interest (such as industry competitors, familial relationships, etc.).

Google is cracking down and enforcing the TOS.

Hi @keyserholiday, thanks for this.

Can you explain how a therapist who works with adults experiencing trauma, who refers folks to a couples therapist--and then writes a review about the good work that the couples therapist does with the couple they referred--gets classified as something that "demonstrates a conflict of interest"? It isn't a conflict of interest, at all.


Or an doctor who treats someone attacked by a dog, and then refers this patient to a trauma therapist. How is that a conflict of interest?

I'm confused by this.

 

[bdegrossa]

That makes sense, and I should have made that boundary clearer.
If Google treats the professional affiliation itself as a conflict-of-interest signal, I would not build the case around “these should be restored because they are professional reviews.” The safer use of the evidence file is to understand exactly what was removed, stop relying on a review source that is likely to keep being filtered, and avoid making the pattern worse.
For an agency managing therapy or psychology profiles, I would separate the work into two tracks:
1. preserve the removed-review history so the client understands what happened and does not keep repeating the same request
2. build future reputation assets outside of GBP where professional referral context can be disclosed without asking Google to treat it as a normal customer review
So yes, if the relationship falls under the conflict-of-interest language, the practical advice is probably to document the removals, avoid trying to recreate that review pattern, and move the reputation strategy somewhere less likely to create a policy problem.

The same client still has 3 other colleague reviews standing in his GBP. Not making sense!