School GBP Review Ban Workaround?

[Kurt Steinbrueck]

Hi Everyone,

I have a private school client that has 5 reviews on Google with a 3.8 rating. They would like to increase their rating and the number of reviews, but since they are a school, Google won't let them get new reviews (we've tried). This has been very frustrating for them (and me). They would like to naturally increase the number of reviews and their ratings, but their stuck because Google won't allow new reviews.

I was reading a Google support thread today from a school where, in one of the responses, the Google rep said the only way to change how reviews were handled for the school was to change their category in their GBP. That got me thinking...

Would it be possible for a school to temporarily change their GBP category to something not considered an educational institution and then ask parents to post reviews. Say, perhaps they change their category, ask 5 parents to post 5-star reviews that week, and then a week later change their category back. It wouldn't be a huge increase in the number of reviews, but it would increase their rating to a 4.4. If they did that 2 more times over the next few months, they could get 20 reviews and a rating of 4.7. That would be very helpful for them to get new students.

What do you think?

PS - As a secondary idea, if there's no way for the school to get new reviews, is there a way to get Google to remove all the reviews so they simply have no rating or reviews?

Thanks!!
Kurt

 

[JS Girard]

Last I looked it was literally just like one or two categories that trigger that ban (i can never remember which ones 'cause I don't work in that vertical). There's well over a dozen confusing and overlapping categories for schools. It should be possible to find one that is not a complete misrepresentation of what you do.

 

[keyserholiday]

You can get reviews if you set the primary category to private school. Remove the other categories.