9 Violations that Allow Businesses to Remove Negative ...

1/24/2019 How to Remove Negative Google Reviews

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9 Violations that Allow Businesses to Remove

Negative Google Reviews

9 Violations that AllowBusinesses to RemoveNegative Google Reviews

93% of consumers read customer reviews before

making a decision about a local business. When

it only takes 1-3 reviews for 40% of potential

customers to form an online decision about a

brand, it’s more important than ever that your

reviews re�ect your business positively and

accurately. So what can a business do to make

sure their local business listings are free from

fake negative reviews?

At a time when every review matters, the ability

to remove negative Google reviews and bolster

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your positive reputation online can be a game

changer for local businesses. Fortunately, Google

has 9 speci�c violations that allow a business to

remove negative reviews from their listings. By

removing reviews that are in violation of

Google’s Review Policy, a brand can improve

their ratings, climb the rankings and ultimately

entice more customers to visit their business.

The 9 Review Violations

1. Spam and fake content.

Online directories are really starting to crack

down on people who leave fake reviews. In fact,

just last year, an Italian man was sentenced to

nine months in jail and �ned for leaving fake

reviews on TripAdvisor.

Most local search directories have automatic

�lters that attempt to mitigate fake reviews from

being posted on local business listings, however,

some still seem to slip through the cracks. In

these cases, you can �ag the reviews in order to

bring them to Google’s attention directly. To spot

a fake review look for signs like overly generic

reviews, ridiculous usernames, fake/non-human

avatars, nearly identical reviews left by the same

person for different businesses, or multiple

reviews posted by the same reviewer in a short

period of time.

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https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/7400114

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Via Apptentive

2. Multiple negative reviews from thesame person.

Sometimes, one person will use multiple Google

accounts in order to leave more than one review

for the same business. They could ask friends to

use their accounts or they could create multiple

fake accounts. However they decide to do it,

using multiple accounts to leave multiple

negative reviews about one experience with a

business is against Google’s review guidelines

and should be �agged for removal.

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3. Inappropriate content, profanity andracial terms.

Any use of inappropriate content or profanity

and racial terms in a review is grounds for

removal. This also includes explicit content,

offensive content, hate speech, harassment, and

bullying. Google’s content policy consists of

many different guidelines restricting this

content from reviews.

4. Fraudulent reviews fromcompetitors.

Sometimes businesses go to drastic measures to

beat their competitors in the local search results.

At times, this may result in attempts to hurt a

competitor’s online reputation. If multiple

businesses in the same industry and in the same

general area receive a bad review from one

person in a relatively short timespan while

leaving one competitor a glowing review, this is

usually a sign the person behind the reviews is

the competitor.

5. Oops! Wrong business.

There has been some circumstance where a

customer clearly, but accidentally left a review

for the wrong businesses. This is easy to spot

because they refer to products or services that

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are completely unrelated to what your business

does. In this case, you can either respond to the

review and politely ask them to remove it or

dispute the review with Google.

6. Leaving reviews at locations theydidn’t visit.

If you have a multi-location business a bad

experience at one location could cause a

customer to go on a tangent of writing bad

reviews at every location in attempts to harm

the brand’s reputation as a whole.

Google’s review guidelines state that you can

only leave a review with a business location that

you’ve actually had a customer experience with.

It’s pretty unlikely that a customer visited more

than one location on the same day and had the

same negative experience at each location.

Another good clue is the location of the user

versus the location of the business. For example,

if the user is in Florida, but they wrote a review

about a location in Ohio and Texas in the same

few days.

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7. Reviews from current or formeremployees.

Whether the review is good or bad, reviews from

current and former employees directly violates

Google’s review guidelines under the “Con�ict of

Interest” section. This also means that

employees aren’t allowed to post reviews about

their competitors either.

8. Reviews that aren’t relevant to anactual experience.

Digital media is enabling the distribution of

news and other stories. However, this means

that if your store or location becomes the

subject of a news article or story, you may begin

to receive reviews from people all over the

country. The problem comes when these people

are commenting on news stories, voicing their

opinions, making personal rants, etc. Reviews

are meant to contain content that is only based

on customer experiences which means anything

off-topic or unrelated to experience is against

Google’s review guidelines.

9. Inappropriate Images

People can also submit reviews in the form of

photos. Many of the guidelines that apply to the

text in reviews also apply to any visual content

uploaded along with the reviews. Images should

only depict the experiences being had at the

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actual location where the customer is leaving

the review for.

How to �ag and removeGoogle reviews

For reviews that violate Google’s terms of service:

1. Open Google Maps and Search for your

business location.

2. Click to view all of your business reviews.

Select “All Reviews”.

3. Click the three dots in the top right corner of

the review you wish to remove and select “Flag

as inappropriate”

4. Fill out the ‘Report a Policy Violation’ form and

submit

For removal of reviews that violate applicable

laws – like slander or copyright infringements –

submit a legal removal request. Follow the

directions on the page. Google will walk you

through the legal removal process.

What to do if Google will notremove the review

Sometimes the review sits on a thin line

between violating Google’s review policy and

not. If Google will not remove the review it is

important you respond to the negative review.

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How to Respond to Negative Reviews

Apologize and thank them for their feedback

– Negative reviews help corporations make

changes to improve current business practices.

Apologize for the unsatisfactory experience and

thank them for giving honest feedback.

Respond appropriately – Remember that the

conversation is public. Never blame the

customer or attempt to argue with them.

Invite the conversation of�ine – Don’t go back

and forth with an unhappy customer on a public

review site. Ask them for more details to ensure

it doesn’t happen again and provide them with

contact information so they can get in touch

with customer service.

Short and Sweet – Don’t say more than

absolutely needed. The idea is to handle the

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review as quickly and politely as possible.

How to Respond to Fraudulent Reviews

Keep your cool – Remain calm. Don’t attack

them, you don’t want to bring more attention to

this review than it deserves.

Clarify the situation – If the interaction this

reviewer did not happen at your store location,

make sure you clarify that. Reply that you have

no record of doing business with that person.

Ask them to take it down – It doesn’t hurt to

ask the reviewer to take down their fraudulent

review. Sometimes people will regret writing a

fake review and when you bring it to their

attention they will take it down.

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https://www.chatmeter.com/blog/9-violations-that-allow-businesses-to-remove-negative-google-reviews/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWXpVeFpXSmxOemcwT… 10/13

Use a Tool to Monitor YourReviews

The best way to stay on top of all your reviews,

positive, negative, or fake, is by incorporating a

tool that monitors all your reviews. This helps you

stay on top of negative and fake reviews so you

can respond to them or �ag them before they

reach the masses. Chatmeter’s review

monitoring and work�ow tools make it easy to

identify, escalate, and respond to every review.

Ready to take control of your reviews? Request a

free brand audit to learn more about how

reviews are affecting your brand.

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January 24th, 2019 | Reputation Management | 2 Comments

Related Posts

2 Comments

Lucie May, 2018 at 10:15 pm - Reply

Hi, I have not been able to have reviews

removed for some of these points. any

suggestions on follow up?

Chatmeter June, 2018 at 4:22 pm - Reply

Hi Lucie,

Sorry to hear that you weren’t able

to remove some of your reviews.

You can always try contacting

Google support directly if you think

the review is in violation of one of

these policies. Another option

would be to respond to the review,

click here for some great tips on

how to respond.

Hope that helps!

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