Flag the Review
If you believe you have received a review that is fake, inappropriate or promotes a competitor you can flag it to be reviewed by Google for removal. Only reviews that violate Google policy will be removed.
Follow these steps to flag a review:
- Log into Google My Business.
- Select the location (if you have multiple)
- In the menu, select “Reviews”
- Find the review in question. Click the three-dot menu, then select “Flag as inappropriate.”
It can take several days for someone at Google to review your request and determine whether they will delete your Google review. If possible, ask other people to flag the review also, as this might draw more attention to an offensive review and encourage Google to remove the Google review.
Flagging the review and/or responding to the unfair comments sometimes gets the review removed. But if those strategies fail, the next step is to report the review to Google Small Business Support.
How to Contact Google Small Business Support
To contact Google’s support for businesses, follow these steps:
- Go to support.google.com/business
- Scroll down and select “contact us”
- Select “customer reviews and photos,” and then “manage customer reviews”
- Choose to receive help via phone, web chat, or email
Using any of these methods, you can expect help within 24 hours. If you choose to contact Google via email or chat, it is helpful to have a screenshot of the review in question ready to go.
You can also send a tweet to the Google My Business team (@GoogleMyBiz) from your company Twitter account. Someone may reply to you and you can take things from there. You could also search for and seek advice about the removal of reviews in the Google community support forum.
The Next Step
When someone from the support team gets in contact with you, it is up to you to explain why the review should be removed. Be ready to tell them why you think the review is false or in violation of policy and to defend your request to get it removed.
In some cases, the member of the support team may tell you that they will escalate the review to a specialist, who will make a decision about the outcome. You will again have to wait for an email confirmation or phone call from the member of the support team who helped you. Hopefully, they will be contacting you with good news.
How To Remove Bad Reviews From Google Local
To remove bad reviews from Google Local, follow these nine steps:
- Sign in to your Google account.
- Open Google Maps.
- Search for your business.
- Choose to view your business reviews.
- Select All Reviews.
- When you see the review you want to remove, click the three dots in the top right corner.
- Select “Flag as inappropriate.”
- Fill out the form “Report a Policy Violation.”
- Click Submit.
Google will then walk you through the legal process of removing the review.