Google Places/Reviews Question

I have a couple of questions about Google Places/Reviews that I am praying someone here can answer for me.

1) Is there a way to disassociate your business completely from Google Places and the reviews that people post? Say John Doe listed my business on Google Places. And then let's say the entire town notices and starts leaving reviews. Is there any way that I as the business owner can go in and say, hey, i do not want my company on Places? And if there is, will this remove the reviews.

2) Is there a way to keep Google Places from showing up underneath the main link for a business? For example, Google "Zunzi's Savannah," and look at the way the stars from Google are displayed right under the main link. Is there a way to prevent this from happening but still remain on Places and open to reviews?

I tried to do a little research on this myself and the results that I find simply state something along the lines of needing review suppression. I only want to suppress reviews, not my actually company website.

Thanks!

You can simply suspend the listing by clicking the "Business owner?" link in the top-right corner of the Places page...

Removing the link from the Places page will likely stop it from showing up directly under your site, but there is no guarantee that the page won't show up somewhere else on the main page, as per Google's algorithm. If you plan on suspending the listing, though, as stated in situation #1, the listing will stop showing up anyway...

If you created the listing you simply remove it.If google created it you must claim it using the info on the google created listing e.g the verifacation code will be sent to the phone\address on the created listing,once done remove it.

You can suspend the listing, but what can happen is that google will notice that you have existing content online and recreate you a google maps listing in which you will have to re-verify.

I had an account that literally hired us to simply keep claiming and suspending his google placeslisting becuase he has like 30 of his 45 reviews as 1 star and it was hurting his business. About every 45-60 days a new listing would come up and we would have to reclaim it. So it can be a temporary fix but not one you should take your eye off of.

Well that's annoying.

We have a lot of clients that are looking to have these reviews removed, but they still want to be found on Google Maps. So needy. LOL.

Thank you for your replies.

Google uses "trigger" directories,if it sees your business there you get an automated listing,sometimes even if you already have one.(The google one will be unclaimed).
There is real info on what directories trigger this.The catch 22 is the more google sees your business in business directories the higher you go.

Are these fake neg reviews or is the company a bunch of cowboys trying to hide the truth?No sympathy if it's the later btw.

The client is dealing with fake reviews. The owner made someone pretty angry and now they are having to deal with tons and tons of negative reviews.

We can suppress the listing if it is separate, but it will be harder if the listing is attached to the company's site.

Can you claim the automated listing? Will it make two listings, one that is user created and one that is automated, or just one?

You can claim any listing that isn't already claimed. Then you can simply delete the extra listings.

And, if the person who is posting the negative reviews is also claiming the listings so you can't do anything with them, you can contact Google and try to get that resolved. It kind of sounds like you have a monster on your hands there, so you probably should try contacting Google.

Besides that, all you can really do is try to combat the negative reviews with positive ones, but it will need to look natural, so that will be difficult.

Try fixing the problem bud. The best way to go, is to turn your business around and flood it with legit reviews from happy customers.
PM me if you need help with this.