Google+ Places Reviews

[nezona]

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

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Alick!

Thanks for turning up that response - hey, it's an oldie! Kind of fun to see

[MiriamEllis]

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!

[Alick300]

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:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2011/07/14/google-quickly-removes-most-review-spam-in-moving-industry-more-remains-at-google-and-elsewhere/

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