Taking Down Errant Reviews

In March of 2021, Google released a “Manage Your Reviews” tool, which gives Google My Business owners the ability to take down and see the status of each Google review on their page. This tool is convenient to help managers keep track of reviews that they have reported to Google for removal.

WHY IS THIS A GAME CHANGER?

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.

MANAGE YOUR REVIEWS

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.

CONCLUSION

The “Manage Your Reviews” tool should ultimately work extremely well for businesses that receive fake or errantly posted reviews that either violate Google’s guidelines or are about a different company. The functionality of this tool to see the status of current review reports or report a review, although it only really works for SMBs that do not have a large number of listings.

STILL HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT TAKING DOWN ERRANT REVIEWS?

CIM Marketing Partners is always here to help. We are more than happy to answer any questions you may have or help with the process of taking down errant reviews.

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~Tony Hsieh, CEO Zappos

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