Google+ Places Reviews
-
Hi There,
Am I right in saying that Google Places reviews cannot be reviewed easily if at all. I have advised a client wirth a negative review to instead respond to the review and get clients to place good quality reviews.
However, they seem to think if I ring Google they will just remove them and that Google has confirmed this.
I am pretty sure I am right but before I jump through pointless hurdles with Google to be told I am, I want to make sure. Has anyone been successful in removing negative reviews from Google.
Kind Regards
Neil
-
Hi Alick!
Thanks for turning up that response - hey, it's an oldie! Kind of fun to see
-
Hey Neil -
Some news your client may be happy to hear: Google has just made a review removal request very visible in their product. See coverage of this on Mike Blumenthal's blog:
http://blumenthals.com/blog/2015/04/03/new-google-support-option-offers-a-form-to-contest-reviews/
However, this would only be an appropriate action to take if the review is truly inappropriate rather than a legitimate negative review of the business. Your client is not correct in his/her belief that you can just phone Google and have them take down reviews. This would not work
So, an inappropriate review might be one left as part of a grudge by a former employee or something like that. This is different than a legit negative review - as in the case of someone getting a raw pizza or being treated rudely at the place of business and documenting their negative experience.
If it's the latter, then best course of action is to make use of the the owner response function described here:
https://support.google.com/business/answer/3474050?hl=en
Owner responses should be crafted with care to show accountability for mistakes, concern for disappointments and a strong willingness to improve and rectify a negative experience. These will help the owner to show he's a good guy who is committed to customer satisfaction. If you are acting as the client's advisor in this, you can help him in the process of developing an excellent, concise, effective response.Hope this helps!
-
Hi Neil,
I am sharing 'Miriam Ellis' views on this. I'm sharing her views second time to answer community user's query :). It is very detailed and informative post on this. Please check once.
"I'm the Local SEO Associate here in the forum and I truly understand what a heartache and headache negative reviews can be and competitive spamming is just about the dirtiest trick in the book.
Okay...here's the deal...I would advise you to attempt to deal with the situation as it is rather than attempting to erase the whole thing and here is why: Google does not need your permission to create a listing for your business. Google began populating their index with 3rd party data, creating all of the Places (then called Maps) listings without any consent from the business owners. Thus, if you attempt to get rid of your listing, there is nothing to prevent Google from simply creating another at which point, even if your old reviews don't carry over (which they might), your rotten competitor will simply persist in spamming you. You will be right back in the same situation.
Unfortunately, I don't believe there is actually a way to 'opt out' of Google if your business is profiled anywhere on the web. You'd have to leave the whole web to be beyond Google's ability to create a Place Page for you. Does that make sense? I have spoken with not a few business owners who resent the powerful grip Google has on their business data and their fortunes. Understandable.
Here is an excellent piece from last year by Mike Blumenthal on this topic:
I have a couple of suggestions to offer:
Suggestion 1. Follow the steps outlined in my interview of Google Places Help Forum Top Contributors Mike Blumenthal and Nyagoslav Zhekov, (http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=1128) namely:
7. What happens when business owners report competitors in the forum for possible spamming? Does this spark a manual look at the listing in question?
Mike: It would if the posting gets flagged by a top contributor and then brought to the attention of Vanessa. It would be best to Report the spam via Report a Problem first and then wait the requisite 4-6 weeks for a resolution before bringing it to the forums. The exception to that would be if someone was at risk due to the spam. It is always best to bring large scale, egregious examples into the forums.
Nyagoslav: It generally depends on the scale of the problem being shared. If it potentially harms a big number of users, then a manual look and action is taken. As spamming is widespread on Google Maps, Googlers tend to run from solving specific cases, but rather take them as samples to build the big picture which could help them stop the spam pattern.
Trojan, once you have managed to claim back your company's account, do the Report A Problem steps outlined by Mike. Make your report clear and thorough and link to the exact problem and describe the competitive spam behavior. Also, admit which negative reviews are actually from customers and are legit. If you don't see resolution in 6 weeks, take the problem into the Google Places Help Forum, which is currently moving house. New link:
http://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!forum/maps
Suggestion 2: Contact a lawyer. If you can identify that there is a competitor in your town who is repeatedly spamming your reviews while faking positive ones for himself, draft a letter with a lawyer letting the competitor know what you have observed. The point here is to alarm him into taking down his lame reviews.
Suggestion 3. As others have said, you need to start acquiring more positive reviews. For the legit negatives, can you leave a response offering to make the situation better? I'm not sitting in front of your reviews, so I don't know if this suggestion is reasonable but if it is, do it, and move forward with more positive reviews.
So, in sum...my advice is to report the problem, take into the forum if nothing happens in 6 weeks, contact a lawyer and improve your positive/negative ratio by acquiring new positive reviews. I think attempting to delete the record would be futile and a waste of time.
Hope this helps! "
You can read full post here @ http://moz.com/community/q/removing-bad-reviews-by-removing-google-places-listing
Thanks
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
3rd Party Approved Reviews - Widget or API Feed - Any thoughts ?
Hi Mozzers, We use a google approved 3rd party review company to collect reviews for our branches and now also for our products( this is about to be implemented). We currently use one of their widgets on our site (its javascript) to show the reviews. I don't think google can read this and I don't think we currently, therefore, get any direct seo benefit from it. My questions are as follows : I obviously want to get any SEO benefit from any review text which customers leave but as the data itself is housed on the review site with a widget on my site pointing to it,should I use an API feed as opposed to a widget. If google can read the review text on my page - then surely i should some benefit from it even though, it could technically be classed as duplicate content what are peoples thoughts ? . thanks Pete
Reviews and Ratings | | PeterCol120 -
Google crawling item page reviews
Hi Moz community, I've been trying to do some on-site work and noticed that our product pages reviews may not be totally optimized. It used to be that all of the text from the reviews appeared in the actual code of the page, but now none of that text appears, so it may not be getting crawled. The change was most likely released when we had an item page redesign. However, when I Google a review snippet, it does seem to come up, so maybe Google is crawling that data despite it not being SEO optimized. Is this really an issue if the review snippets are showing up in search, there's been a lot of talk that Google is now better at crawling javascript. Thanks
Reviews and Ratings | | znotes0 -
Will adding schema markup to copied Google reviews show up in organic search?
Google no longer favors my client's industry with Google reviews in local Snack Pack results, but a national competitor has markup for site-based reviews that are showing up in organic results, which is a big, shiny, advantage. Rather than have to solicit reviews in two places (Google and the site), I'm wondering if it would be possible/advisable to copy and paste the Google reviews into the site and mark them up there, in an attempt to get Google to feature the rating in the organic SERP result? I don't know if this would work though, since I'm guessing part of the reason that Google accepts the competitor reviews is because they are verified purchases, which wouldn't be possible just cutting and pasting. But is it worth a try? It's too bad though, Google is effectively only showing handpicked, "national" reviews, which does local customers a disservice. Thank you!
Reviews and Ratings | | PerfectPitchConcepts1 -
Why does Google return 1 star reviews in local listings as the "most helpful"?
I have a client who has recently received two 1 star reviews on Google local (unhappy customer and unhappy customers boyfriend). This is affecting an otherwise flourishing business as these two 1 star reviews are displayed prominently when you search for the brand in Google. They have since received more positive reviews, however Google insists on displaying, what they term, the "most helpful" reviews first. Why are these 1 star reviews deemed "most helpful"? In all honesty, they aren't even really that helpful, with the latter verging on slanderous. We are in the process of reporting this one as it personally attacks a member of staff, however, whilst we tentatively wait weeks for a response, I wondered if anyone has any idea on how G decides which reviews are "most helpful"? When there is no option for other users to rate these reviews as helpful (such as on play store).
Reviews and Ratings | | Silkstream0 -
Using structured data for reviews - for negative or warnings.
We all use review markup today and we use it linearly as only a vote up or down. My question is around a site that will judge the negative impacts of given chemicals introduced into certain waterways. (Sorry, I must protect the client so I cannot give out all the info; I hope this is enough for a reasonable understanding.) Is there anyone who has ever used or is aware of any markup that does not result in a star? So, if we use the current system, we end up where a bad chemical gets a ton of single stars. In essence what we are measuring is degrees of Positive. With four stars there is no zero positive, but 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% (Ok unless it is aggregated). I want to be able to show degrees of negative and obviously stars would be confusing. So, have a symbol that connotes a negative (skull and crossbones, X, !!, etc.) and the more of these someone marks shows more displeasure or more danger. Are there any ideas for this or any occurrences already on the Internet you may be aware of? Preference would be to be able to at some point have search engines show them as snippets. Thanks to all you Mozzers, Robert
Reviews and Ratings | | RobertFisher0 -
Do schema review numbers have to be manually updated?
Hi! I've had success with review schema rendering in SERPs but have had to manually code the numbers and update those numbers as more reviews come in (which is a bit time-consuming). Is there a way to use auto-generated numbers that will still render schema or do those numbers have to be manually added? I've looked at the schema for sites like IMDB, and their schema numbers seem to be manually added, which seems like a huge lift. Advice/input is appreciated!
Reviews and Ratings | | 199580 -
Wondering best ways to optimize for google maps/local listing
I'm wondering if there is any strategy to optimize a client to show up in the local listings. I assume a lot of this is tied to Google + / Google Places for Business. Is it possible to have a company show up in the local listings over a certain geographic area even if they are not technically addressed in that area? Any help is much appreciated. Thanks, Dan H.
Reviews and Ratings | | higherimages0 -
Where Google+ Local Gets Listings?
I've seen a lot of business owners mention that their website is on Google+ Local but they say they never added it. Does anyone know which companies Google buys databases from and lists the businesses and unclaimed? And how often do they do this?
Reviews and Ratings | | CyberAlien0