Google Reviews: 9 Reasons They Don’t Display and How to Fix
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Google reviews are the most important factor in local SEO. If you have more 5-star Google business ratings, then your star rating will go up and so too will sales! But what happens when they disappear or aren’t showing up? It can be frustrating not having any feedback from customers on where things went wrong or if there is anything that needs improvement.
Google reviews might not show up correctly for various reasons. If you have been experiencing an issue with your business’s rating and revenue, we will discuss the steps to take in order reclaim missing Google My Business (GMB) or local listings data from customers so that they can be updated on their own profile page as well!
Let’s get started
Why Customer Reviews Are Important for Small Business
Local reviews are important because they show your reputation and help you rank on the “3-Pack” — which is what Google uses to determine where ads can be placed. Google reviews also play a big role in closing deals; according to online review statistics, potential customers read more than ten of them before deciding whether or not this business will work for them!
The feeling of receiving an honest review from a customer who has traveled far to leave you high praise is incredible. Imagine the joy when this happens only for it to be lost in translation due to some glitch or oversight on Google’s end? This doesn’t have to do with how many likes your business gets; instead, think more along these lines: what good are positive reviews if they’re gone forever??
If this describes your experience then there may exist hope yet! As frustrating as those five stars were disappearing after being glued into place by countless visitors…The culprit might have to do with the Google Review Policy.
What Is Google’s Review Policy?
Google is cracking down on fake customer reviews, and they’re becoming more stringent with their guidelines. Two things you should know about these policies that could impact your company’s ranking as well:
- Prohibited Content means anything illegal or infringing
- Restricted Content includes sensitive personal information
Prohibited and Restricted Content
Google has a policy for Prohibited and Restricted Content that applies to reviews.
Google analyzes all reviews, looking at things like spammy language or offensive content in order to determine if any of them are subject to removal because it doesn’t comply with company standards on what’s appropriate when writing about businesses online- which can include taking down fake positive feedback as well!
Have you ever seen your business’ review removed from google or suddenly stop showing up after posting? That might have been due to these policies’ violation by containing sensitive material such as details concerning financial transactions.
Format-Specific Criteria for Text Reviews and Captions
Have you ever asked yourself, “Why are my Google reviews not showing up?” It could be because of these examples from Google’s format-specific criteria.
First of all, you can’t selectively solicit only positive feedback or actively discourage negative comments/reviews; this is considered manipulation and will get your account suspended very quickly if caught doing so! So make sure that whatever kind of words appear in your Google review posts, are honest opinions without having any strings attached as payment for posting something good about someone else (or themselves). Another example would include making threats to harm someone.
Google Reviews Not Showing?
When you’re trying to find out why your Google reviews aren’t showing up, there are a few things that could be causing the problem.
- Embedded Links in Google Reviews
- Google Review Marked as Spam
- Fake Google Reviews
- Google Reviews Temporarily Disabled
- Your Business Is Newly Listed on Google
- Your Google Business Profile Is Inactive
- The Reviewer’s Account Is Inactive
- Your Google Business Profile Has a Duplicate
- Your Business Has Changed Locations
1. Embedded Links in Google Reviews
Links in reviews are a no-no for Google, and if you see one on your search engine results page (SERP) it will be gone before you can say “link building”. This is because they consider these URLs potentially spammy which can hurt the reputation of businesses with good standing online – not just those who use paid placement campaigns either!
So what should we do? If the link hasn’t been removed yet, try contacting the reviewer via email and ask nicely about removing this pesky little violation (the link) from the review.
2. Google Review Marked as Spam
Google’s rigorous spam review procedures help keep its search results reliable and trustworthy. Google will not accept any fake, paid-for content to be posted on the platform so you can rest assured that all of your reviews are genuine! In addition, Google will also flag reviews marked as spam by others.
3. Fake Google Reviews
Google is always on the lookout for authenticity. That’s why they mark reviews submitted from profiles without a name, photo, and other essential details as fake because it strives to maintain transparency in their search engine rankings.
In many cases, when businesses resort to buying these automated reviews, they come across as suspicious because most of these posts are created by bots using fake profiles with little or no personal information attached!
Buying reviews for your business too can lead to greater problems for your business’ presence on Google. It could result in the removal of your Google Business Profile.
4. Google Reviews Temporarily Disabled
Reviews are important for customer feedback, and when Google has limited working members on its team they resort to disabling the review section of Business Profiles. For instance, in times when there’s a global health pandemic affecting millions around the world, it temporarily disabled reviews so that customers can’t leave new ones or you can’t respond back to any existing ones.
5. Your Business Is Newly Listed on Google
You might have a hard time finding your business on Google at first if it’s new. To increase marketing efforts, attract more customers and get reviews for yourself- start ranking higher by doing SEO today! You can do this by investing in online marketing such as social media or paid ads on Google. Using Google for your paid ads might help grease the wheels of Google a little too.
6. Your Google Business Profile Is Inactive
If you haven’t updated your Google Business Profile in a while, it’s possible that the company profile has lost its verification status. This could result in no longer being able to receive reviews or other engagement on google searches which will make public visibility difficult for both current customers as well new ones looking up information about what you have to offer them. Iron Rhino can help with that by posing regularly to your GMB profile on your behalf with current and engaging content.
7. The Reviewer’s Account Is Inactive
Sometimes past reviews can go missing if a customer has their personal Google account deactivated. This could happen because they broke policies or even intentionally on purpose, so all of the data from that user’s experience will be removed including any written feedback left behind as part of these closed accounts.
Sometimes when people close out old Gmail accounts in order to prevent hackers from accessing them through phishing techniques (a technique where fake links are sent via email), it also means that google Inactive Account Manager gets activated if this occurs all the user’s data is removed and unfortunately so does all the reviews submitted by that user.
8. Your Google Business Profile Has a Duplicate
When it comes to your Google Business Profile, you want all the important information for potential customers and investors seen. You also need an active listing with high-quality content so that people will trust what they see on screen as well as provide more leads to companies who might purchase products or services from you!
If there are duplicates (including accidental ones), if you find one, you can rectify it by reporting it as a duplicate.
9. Your Business Has Changed Locations or has Out-Dated Information
Google is always in the process of organizing reviews, and it can take some time for them to be transferred. If you want your old location’s testimonials on Google Maps transferred over to the new one, you should proactively update your business information so people will know where you are located now (and also avoid any problems). This might require you to re-verify your business, this verification could be by phone or postcard.
By clicking the “Info” section of the GMB dashboard, you can edit public information such as the address, operating hours, and phone number.
You can use the “Info” section to “refresh” your location.
Important information: If you already have a verified Google Business profile do not change the address if your address is already correct. This will cause your listing to drop out of verification and you will have to go through the verification process again.
Steps to Fix Missing Google Reviews
Most of the time when a business review no longer shows up on Google, it’s because they have been reported as spam or inappropriate content. But you can fight this violation yourself if you think that there was an error with their decision-making process!
For noncompliance from other reasons (like policies), go ahead and contact them using these steps:
- Collect all the evidence you can about your new reviews not being displayed. This can include screenshots of reviews that are not visible on your Google Business Profile.
- If you recently reinstated your Google Business Profile, contact support and provide them with a case number and reinstatement details to request review transfers.
- For Google Business Profiles not recently suspended, you need to contact Google Support for assistance with your missing reviews.
- If you’re not satisfied with Google’s help, you can post your issue on the Google Business Profile Community to try to get a sympathetic Google employee’s attention.
Final Thoughts
Reviews are a major factor in driving revenue and acquiring customers by using our Reputation Management & Customer Voice solution can help you to continue to get more reviews from your clients. Gathering these reviews from Google is important.
Reviews are an opportunity to get feedback and help you improve your service or branding efforts with Google. Both of which lead directly toward increased clientele through better search results while also being certified 5 stars on local listings!
