Reviews Not Showing

[Carleton Wilkins]

I've seen a trend with at least 10 of our clients (orthodontists) whereby their patients are stating that they've left reviews for the practice, which show up in their (patients') Google+ accounts, but never seem to go live on the practice's Google+ Local page. And it truly seems to be hit and miss . . . some appear, most do not. Timeframe-wise, we're talking about reviews posted as far back as 5 weeks.

OK, so we've all read the myriad of discussions in public forums, but I'm interested to hear this group's thoughts.

1) Is Google doing something akin to Yelp whereby users that haven't established a body of reviews are being withheld? This is something I suspect. But it's a facet of Yelp that drives me crazy, and I'm hoping it's not the case with "new" Google.

2) We're also seeing reviews post only to disappear shortly thereafter. Having waited weeks and weeks, they're not coming back. Thoughts on this?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yes reviews have been just a mess lately. I mean they are already problematic but lately they have gotten a lot worse. The complaints in the Google forum just keep coming in droves.

I suspect a combination of things - some new spam filters that are wound too tight and catch too many honest reviews, bugginess and new users with G+. That last meaning folks just setting up G+ and getting used to it and maybe changing privacy settings somehow.

If you have responsive patients who are saying I left a review and WANT it to show, but it's only showing up in my account where I can see it - I have seen a couple people that said if they edited the review - I think even just a minor edit, then it would show for some reason.

I Scooped a story from MediaPost this week and am glad some bigger media outlets are talking about it.

<a href="http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/179038/problems-with-google-local-harm-small-businesses.html">Problems With Google+ Local Harm Small Businesses</a>

Anyone else have any tips or ideas about what's up?

 

[JoyHawkins]

In the past, whenever I saw a large chunk of reviews disappear, they always ended up coming back. If it was just 1-2 reviews that disappeared, they generally are caught by the spam filter and don't come back. I've seen a TON disappear lately off tons of my clients. Some of them have lost all of their reviews. I can only hope this means that they will return. I think it's been about a month now and they haven't come back yet.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Mike Blumenthal once said:

<a href="http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/05/14/what-should-you-tell-a-client-when-google-loses-their-reviews-a-4-part-plan/">What Should You Tell A Client When Google Loses Their Reviews ? A 4 Part Plan</a>

#2) Provide a dose of humor and reality: Since there is not much a client or SEO can do, I also I provide them with the 6,6,6 rule for lost reviews to guide them as to what to expect in terms of recovery of the reviews. It might provide some small comfort.

What is the 6,6,6 review rule? (any client imagined thoughts about the devil suggested by my guideline are actively encouraged)

If reviews don?t come back to the Google Places page in 6 days, they might return in 6 weeks

If they don?t return in 6 weeks they might return in 6 months

If they don?t return in 6 months they have descended to Dante?s 6th Ring of Hell

 

[Linda Buquet]

Wow, lots and lots of folks complaining about all types of review problems in the forum. Hope they get it sorted out soon!

 

[JoyHawkins]

I thought I'd share something I discovered about the "missing reviews". In 2 cases, when we logged in using the Google Local app on our mobile devices and re-posted the review from there, it showed.

Full details: http://imprezziomarketing.com/seo-b...to-avoid-the-google-local-review-spam-filter/

Carleton- do you have a way of tracking down any of the people that left the reviews and asking them to try this to see if it works?

 

[Carleton Wilkins]

I will reach out to see and keep you updated.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Uber weird! Thanks for sharing Joy!