To Respond (to old reviews) or not to respond: that is the question.

[Ray Litvak]

I recently started working with a new local client, focusing on updating their Google Business Profile. They had several Reviews (a combination of positive and negative) with no replies. Some were over two years old and buried at the bottom of their existing list of reviews, 59 to be exact. As such, does it make sense to address the older reviews that never received a response? Additionally, is it advisable to respond to older and highly toxic negative reviews, potentially resulting in a backlash? Inquiring minds...
Thanks to those in advance who responded; pun intended

 

[JeffClevelandTN]

Hi Ray! Anything over two years old, are most likely not going to be read by prospective customers. Really you don't have to worry about anything a year or older, if you primarily worried about prospective customer/client perception as 1+ year old reviews just aren't considered very relevant. Here is a great article from BrightLocal, if you don't want to read the whole thing you can skip to the section "Review Recency." However, I personally would suggest responding to all the positive reviews, just to acknowledge the customer's time and it may encourage them to do repeat business after they are notified of your response. I would strongly emphasize to the client that they need to respond to all reviews going forward. Also, here is a recent timely article that you might want to share with your client by @ElizabethRule: How to Respond to Google Reviews

 

[Ray Litvak]

Hi Ray! Anything over two years old, are most likely not going to be read by prospective customers. Really you don't have to worry about anything a year or older, if you primarily worried about prospective customer/client perception as 1+ year old reviews just aren't considered very relevant. Here is a great article from BrightLocal, if you don't want to read the whole thing you can skip to the section "Review Recency." However, I personally would suggest responding to all the positive reviews, just to acknowledge the customer's time and it may encourage them to do repeat business after they are notified of your response. I would strongly emphasize to the client that they need to respond to all reviews going forward. Also, here is a recent timely article that you might want to share with your client by @ElizabethRule: How to Respond to Google Reviews

Hi, Jeff! Thank you for your feedback. I agree with 99.9% of your comments. Ironically, Elizabeth's article on the subject inspired me to pose the question in the first place. I read the Bright Local article you referenced, and unless I missed it, I could not find the answer to my question. To further compound the issue, I've encountered cases where the 'negative review(s)' in question resided as one of the top three in a client's Knowledge Panel (see attachment). These cases make it more challenging to ignore.

 

[JS Girard]

Hi, Jeff! Thank you for your feedback. I agree with 99.9% of your comments. Ironically, Elizabeth's article on the subject inspired me to pose the question in the first place. I read the Bright Local article you referenced, and unless I missed it, I could not find the answer to my question. To further compound the issue, I've encountered cases where the 'negative review(s)' in question resided as one of the top three in a client's Knowledge Panel (see attachment). These cases make it more challenging to ignore.

I would answer that review, yes. In GBP managements, there are very few rules that are 100% hard cut for every GBP everywhere.

GMB API's recent data about unanswered reviews being more likely to be deleted as spam might also sway you, but I have not seen data confirming that their numbers (64% of deleted reviews were unanswered) aren't just reflecting the proportions of unanswered reviews in the overall dataset they were using...