Taking Down Errant Reviews

There have been many fake, malicious, irrelevant or reviews posted to the wrong company on Google, resulting in a decrease in credibility and review ranking. The Manage Your Reviews tool, however, doesn’t work for business accounts with a large number of listings quite yet (like CIM who manages many Google My Business listings). This tool is ideal for small to medium businesses (SMBs). Although in its infancy and doesn’t work for everyone, this is a small step in the right direction of how Google manages review removal.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

You can find the Manage Your Reviews tool within the Google Help section. When you click on the tool, click on your business listing, which gives you the option to check the status of current review reports or to report a new review for takedown. When you click on “report a new review for takedown,” it will list all of the reviews in chronological order, with the option to report a problem on the right side of each review. You will then receive a shortlist of reasons why you wish to take down the review. After you click on the desired reason, the review will then be reported and you will additionally receive a follow-up email about the review.

If you would like to check the status of current review reports, you click on the status of current reviews button. A list of the reviews you reported will show in chronological order, and the status of each review will show on the right side, with it either saying the report has been approved and taken down, the decision is pending, or the report was reviewed and there was no policy violation. You have the ability to appeal a review if Google stated there was no policy violation and you believe there was. You then receive more in-depth options to state why you still wish to proceed with the removal of the review.