Reviews keep disappearing from my GMB profile

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tubbylad

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Legitimate reviews keep disappearing from my GBP profile and I have a feeling a competitor is reporting the reviews or something and getting them removed. How plausible is this?

I have 2 local competitors who are generating mass numbers of reviews for their businesses. 1 of the companies has 3x or more reviews than any other company in the same line of business in the area and any time you pass the shop there is never a customer in there. They have a 2nd location that is building reviews at a faster pace than can be real.

Meanwhile every few days my review count keeps dropping even though we are getting legitimate reviews from my customers.

Is this possible? If so, how are they getting the reviews removed? Is 1 report on the review to google enough for them to remove the review? If so, what is the criteria to get the review removed?
 
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Yes, it is possible but not how you think. On Google Business Profile, reviews are usually removed by automated filters, not competitor reports. One report alone rarely removes a review. Your reviews may drop due to spam signals like sudden spikes, similar content, or low trust accounts. Competitors can report, but they can not directly delete legit reviews Google mainly acts on patterns, not complaints.
 
I built a review tracker and scraper to keep track of the reviews so i can see which ones have been removed. It is not the odd review though, we are talking about multiple reviews being removed continuously. For instance last night 4 reviews were removed and the other day 8. Meanwhile, I have other businesses that have had zero reviews removed.

One of the reviews that were removed yesterday the customer says it shows a message saying this review can't be published at this time. There was nothing against google's TOS in this review. It was also left a couple of weeks ago.
 
A single report usually isn’t enough to remove a review unless it clearly violates guidelines.
More often, reviews disappear because Google flags patterns it considers suspicious, even if they’re legitimate.
 
How many reports per review does 1 need to have it removed?
 
tubbylad said:
Legitimate reviews keep disappearing from my GBP profile and I have a feeling a competitor is reporting the reviews or something and getting them removed. How plausible is this?

I have 2 local competitors who are generating mass numbers of reviews for their businesses. 1 of the companies has 3x or more reviews than any other company in the same line of business in the area and any time you pass the shop there is never a customer in there. They have a 2nd location that is building reviews at a faster pace than can be real.

Meanwhile every few days my review count keeps dropping even though we are getting legitimate reviews from my customers.

Is this possible? If so, how are they getting the reviews removed? Is 1 report on the review to google enough for them to remove the review? If so, what is the criteria to get the review removed?
Click to expand...
Couple of things:
1. my question to you is, have you messed with your GMB in the past?

Messing with your GMB can cause red flags = google putting restrictions on you.

2. When did these dissapearing reviews take place? There was a time last month when google was buggy and the count was off
3. Do you have one of those businesses where the "reviewer can be anywhere in the country?"
4. Review reporting alone won't get this removed..
But' i would like to hear your answers on my first 4 question so I can figure out what's going on.
 
blackhat64 said:
Couple of things:
1. my question to you is, have you messed with your GMB in the past?

Messing with your GMB can cause red flags = google putting restrictions on you.

2. When did these dissapearing reviews take place? There was a time last month when google was buggy and the count was off
3. Do you have one of those businesses where the "reviewer can be anywhere in the country?"
4. Review reporting alone won't get this removed..
But' i would like to hear your answers on my first 4 question so I can figure out what's going on.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply!

1- I haven't messed with my GMB before

2- This has been on going for a long time. One of my staff members has been mentioning it for years. I have only started tracking the reviews this week to see which ones are being removed. This isn't happening to any of my other businesses.

3- It is a local business so we only really serve people in the local area. We could have tourists though so not all reviews will be from local people.

I am also tracking my competitors reviews to see if any of those are getting removed. 3 of the competitors are definitely doing something suspicious with their reviews because it is impossible to get the velocity of reviews they are getting. Also many of the reviews are from people with only that review and the way they are written it is definitely not by someone local.
 
tubbylad said:
Thanks for the reply!

1- I haven't messed with my GMB before

2- This has been on going for a long time. One of my staff members has been mentioning it for years. I have only started tracking the reviews this week to see which ones are being removed. This isn't happening to any of my other businesses.

3- It is a local business so we only really serve people in the local area. We could have tourists though so not all reviews will be from local people.

I am also tracking my competitors reviews to see if any of those are getting removed. 3 of the competitors are definitely doing something suspicious with their reviews because it is impossible to get the velocity of reviews they are getting. Also many of the reviews are from people with only that review and the way they are written it is definitely not by someone local.
Click to expand...
so what kind of business is it?
 
It can happen but it's rarely just a competitor reporting once and getting reviews removed. Most of the time google's filter is doing it automatically when something looks off like review pattern, accounts, wording, etc..., so even legit reviews can get caught in that
 
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