Sometimes your Google My Business (GMB) listing can experience ‘blackouts’ due to technical reasons such as glitches in Google Algorithms. One of the most common queries of our customers is that why aren’t their Google reviews showing?
Today we are going to discuss in detail the reasons for disappearing Google reviews. The disappearing reviews can occur either due to GMB listing issues or due to problems with the formatting of the review.
Table of Contents
Why Does Your Brand Need Google Reviews to Show Up?
Google reviews are important for your business’s brand identity, they help you to improve the online reputation of your business. Online review management should be your top priority since data of customer reviews shows that Google stores 57.5% of all reviews. Data also shows that 64% of potential customers check online reviews before they visit a business.
Why Is My Google Review Not Public?
Your business’s Google review might not show when you search for them because they might be violating the review policies of Google. There might be issues in your listing or the reviews are spammy or their formatting is just not acceptable.
“Google Reviews Not Showing”: GMB Listing Issues
Your Google review might not show because of problems with the listing of your GMB. If you have basic know-how you can do the necessary changes yourself. But in some cases, the issue arises due to changes in the GMB program.
Recently, Google disabled reviews during the start of the current global pandemic, this was an instance of change that is beyond a business’s control. The Tech Giant was facing a shortage of staff due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so the listings experienced disabled Google reviews.
Leaving customers without the option to write new reviews, and consequently, the businesses were not able to respond to reviews on their GMB listing. Previous reviews were still visible.
Duplicate Listings
Another common reason for missing reviews is duplicate business listings. Always double-check your location for any duplicate listing. The review gets removed from your current listing and appears on an alternate listing. This alternate listing is not owned by you so you cannot manage it.
You can check by searching for your business location’s name and address on Google Maps.
Inaccurate, Outdated Listing Information
Potential customers can be turned away due to incorrect listing as well and reduce the number of reviews a business can get after a customer uses their service. However, you can change and edit the listing information on your GMB. You can also implement best practices in local listing management.
You can edit public information, by clicking on “info” in the GMB dashboard. Edits can include address, operating hours, location, and phone number.
To edit your location on the map go to “info” and then “refresh” your location. Click the pencil icon, a pop-up will show a Google Maps interface. Try to move the pin a little bit until it sets on the correct location. Click “Apply” to save the changes.
Inactive Listings
Not logging into your Google My Business dashboard can result in an inactive listing. Inactivity can negatively affect your brand’s reputation. Remember you can also lose verification status if you do not post updates, photos and review responses within a certain period.
An unverified status will result in your business not showing in Google Search or Maps, so potential customers will not find any previous feedback and user reviews.
Although Google will email you before revoking the status if you miss the email, it will become unverified. Then you will have to go through contact support to restore the status.
Brand New Listings
New businesses can get listed on Google Search but it will take some time for their listing to take off because reviews are not posted immediately.
You will also have to fulfill certain criteria set by Google for the listing to start showing reviews.
Same Business, New Location
If a business changes its address/location, Google transfers the reviews to the new location automatically.
But if a business is location-specific such as a recreation place (water park), Google might not transfer the reviews. In such a situation you can report the issue through the Report a Problem link to Google. You will need to provide the necessary information such as both previous and current business locations and might have to re-verify your listing.
How Long Does It Take For A Google Review To Post
The reviews of a newly listed business will show when your listing has reviews from at least five people. So you should have a review request strategy to ask your loyal customers for positive feedback on your Google listing.
Also, be sure to learn how to respond to negative reviews as well as positive feedback from customers.
Google Outages
In some cases, your reviews disappear due to Google outages. This can affect a small percentage of business listings in some regions, this is a temporary issue and gets resolved quickly.
“Google Reviews Not Showing”: Review Formatting
Review formatting is a problem that is not caused by an issue in your listing. It is also something you can not control. These occur because of the way some reviews are written or submitted. All you can do is request your customers to write reviews by using best practices.
Private or Deleted Reviews
In the older version of the platform, it was possible to mark your review as “private.” But this feature was removed in an update. So if you suspect that a review is missing it is most probably deleted by the user. There is not much you can do other than hoping that the customer will write another review.
Reviews from Third-Party Sites
Previously, Google used reviews and feedback data from different sites such as Facebook, TripAdvisor to display business reviews on local business listings. But they stopped this practice and these previous reviews are no longer available on Google listings.
But it can still show feedback from customers from reputable sites in a section called “Reviews around the Web.” This section is below the Google user’s reviews and uses an algorithm to report these so they may not be accurate.
Reviews Marked as Spam
These reviews are marked as spam by Google Algorithms to ensure the integrity and credibility of reviews on the platform. Reviews that violate the Google review policy are removed. Also, some reviews are flagged by users for inappropriate content so they are removed as well after being investigated by Google.
Google is fighting review spam with great vigor on its platform so genuine reviews should be given.
Conclusion
The best way to build a successful brand identity on the Internet’s largest search engine is to provide an award-winning customer experience and then requesting these customers to give valuable feedback in the form of reviews. This way not only your GMB profile will achieve 5-star status but your revenues will also go up.
If a review is missing from your business listing, don’t panic, use it as an opportunity to improve your service and to get more Google reviews from new customers.
Or you can implement the SEO best practices service of Social Spike to achieve the top spot for your business on Google Search: https://socialspike.ca/
