Photos never seem to get filtered automatically. Photos accompanying Google reviews are just as badly policed as the reviews are. The best you can do is encourage happy customers to speak up, often and in large numbers.ġ0. You can’t control what’s in the review snippets – the ones you see in the right-hand sidebar (the knowledge panel), or the ones in the Google Maps 3-pack. One way I know that is because probably twice a week some idiot emails me to ask how many reviews I can write for him. There’s a black market of people who want to buy Google reviews. Even if those reviews are bogus, unfair, unhelpful, or paid-for (or some combination thereof).Ĩ. “ Local Guides” are minted and promoted on the basis of how many reviews they’ve written. Google owns them, and Google controls them – for better or for worse.ħ. You do not own and cannot control the Google Maps reviews of your business. Google filters policy-violating reviews rarely, and they’re tough to get removed manually (if you can get them removed at all).Ħ.

Ratings left by Google users who’ve only rated one business are especially stubborn, because Google can’t detect fishy patterns of behavior (like that a “customer” hired 10 moving companies in 6 different states in the span of a month).ĥ. Ratings-only reviews stick more than they should. More often, you’ll need to go to greater lengths (and Google still may not remove the review).Ĥ. Sometimes flagging it down multiple times over a period of weeks or months will work.

Reporting a bogus review just once doesn’t work. For Google, reviews are a way to crowdsource info about local businesses and to keep searchers’ attention on Google’s local search results as they get larded with ads.ģ. You, customers, and Google all care about Google reviews for different reasons. Google doesn’t care whether a reviewer is a real customer, or about what happens to your business as a result of bogus reviews. Those will help you approach Google reviews with fewer blind spots.ġ. Here are some hard truths of Google reviews.

But you’ll have a harder time accomplishing that if you know as little about Google reviews as they know. You’d like more and better reviews than your competitors have. The big problem is just as obvious: Google does an awful job of policing reviews, causing all sorts of mischief and mayhem. Google reviews can help your business for obvious reasons: They’re mighty visible in the Google Maps search results, and searchers pay attention to the reviews (and sometimes believe them).

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