Remove the Review from Google+ | Report the Review to Google Small Business Support

How To Remove Fake Reviews On Google+

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I can feel your pain. I have dealt with many clients who call up in a panic because a competitor has left a bad review on their Google+ page. Unfortunately, there is no way to stop someone from leaving a bad review, but does this mean you should grit your teeth and get on with it?

Reviews are incredibly important in local SEO and fake reviews can have a hugely negative impact on your business. However, they can be removed from a Google+ page, but only if it is completely irrelevant or if it does not comply with Google’s review guidelines. A client once had a bad review on their Google+ page from one of it competitors that simply said ‘Dog’. As it was a pawly written review (I had to, I’m sorry) it was fairly easy to convince Google to remove it.

So there are two simple ways to remove a negative, irrelevant review:

Solution #1: Flag It

When you hover over a review, a little grey flag icon will appear which you click to report it to Google. Someone from Google will then review it and contact you back regarding the final outcome. Even if the fake review is worded as a genuine customer, I have seen reviews removed by Google once flagged so it is always worth trying.

Solution #2: Contact Google My Business Support

The other solution is to get directly in touch with the GMB Support team. There are several ways to get in touch, but a direct message on twitter appears to be the most effective. You can find the GMB twitter account here.  You can usually find other ways to get in touch with them at the bottom of this link. This is pretty much the same as solution 1 but I have found that direct contact can sometimes work quicker.

It’s Not Over Yet

If you have received a negative review by a competitor who is pretending to be a customer, you may not be able to get it removed, but you can still do something about it. Google allows you to respond to reviews,  so this is your chance to make it obvious to viewers that the review is fake.

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I tend to tell my clients to respond with something along the lines of  this:

“Dear Customer, I am sorry to hear that you are not satisfied with our service. I have checked our accounts and it appears that we don’t have your name listed as a previous customer, but I would be more than happy to deal with your problem if you could call us on …”

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This is not a great example but you get the idea. It allows you to remain professional and apologise for the non-existent bad service but to also state that you can’t recall them being a customer, implying that it could be fake.

Reviews Increase Click-Through Rates by 28%

Getting a fake review as your first ever review on Google+ can be very frustrating. But it’s not as bad if the fake review has been added to a page that already has a handful of good reviews. It will still bring the average review score down, but at least it won’t show as a 1 star. We recommend our clients to get at least 3 positive reviews a month on the Google+ page. This will help them gradually build a nice portfolio of reviews that will eventually range back several months/years. If you are needing help with getting more reviews, have a think about implementing a review strategy or check out this guide on how to get more reviews on Google.

I check reviews of products and services more and more now, and out of the huge mass of great reviews a single product can receive, there will always be that one fussy person who is never satisfied with anything. How I see it is if you have 20 great reviews from that last 2 months and just one bad review somewhere in the middle, it makes the bad review look a little less believable.

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Report the Review to Google Small Business Support

If the fake review has not been removed using the flagging method, get in touch with a support associate. You can do this through:

1. The Google My Business Dashboard

• Log into your GMB page.
• Go to the Reviews section.
• Click on the home menu and select Support.
• Choose a method of Contact – Phone or Email.
• Fill in the necessary contact parameters, Add a screenshot of the review in question, and wait patiently (you should hear back within 24-48 Hours).

Remove the Review from Google+ | Report the Review to Google Small Business Support

2. Tweet the Small Business Support Team via Twitter
The small business team is knowledgeable and also takes around 24 – 48 hours to get in touch with you (no guarantee though).

• Sign in to Twitter.
• Send a Tweet from your company account to the Google Small Biz team.
• Once you hear back from someone, explain the situation and go from there.

3. Ask the Google Community For Help
If you have a specific question with regards to the spam policy or are seeking advice from other community members, you can use the Support Forum to get answers.

• Go to the Spam & Policy Forum in GMB.
• You can Search previous questions of issues that are similar to yours for a solution, or you can ask a question about your spammy/fake review problem.
• There are some really awesome community experts that are extremely helpful and can escalate and report your problems, as well as community managers that can assist.

Make Your Case

Okay, so you have finally got in touch with an associate from the small business support team, now what? Well, you have to make a case and do your best to show

• why the review is false,
• how it violates their policies,
• why it should be removed,
• any images, links, or other details that backup your claim.

After you report it to a support associate and make your case, they will advise you of whether or not they will escalate the review(s) to a “specialist,” this specialist makes the determines the outcome. Once a decision has been made you will receive a phone call or email confirmation from the small business support associate who was helping you.

How We Had a False Review Removed

When the review is clearly false or spam it’s easier to have removed, for instance, we had the following review removed because the “experience” being referenced was absolutely not related to our business and services:

Remove the Review from Google+ | Report the Review to Google Small Business Support

I followed ALL of the steps above:

• We responded to the review. We actually kind of thought it was funny how far off this reviewer was and it didn’t really bother us that the review was there, as it is very obvious to anyone that this review is not for our business.
• I flagged the review and provided my contact information and reason why the review was being flagged.
• A few days later I contacted GMB support, and I also contacted the Twitter team – just to see if there was a difference in the approach or information. Surprisingly this time, I found the small business support team more efficient. In the middle of the Twitter team’s assistance they stopped responding. Perhaps it was because they are very busy, I am not certain. I wouldn’t rule them out though, I have had positive experiences with them in the past.

#whitespark