All my reviews are suddenly being flagged and I assume it is by someone who did not like a review.

Google Maps tips & tricks
1

Hi Everyone,

I would like to ask for some help or insight into a situation that I am currently in.

I recently noticed, that quite a few of my reviews have been removed, even though I make sure that I follow the guidelines of the review-process. As such my reviews are being removed for different reasons that are not true, like: Trying to influence a business rating artificially, hate/harrassment etc… I have only ever been honest and some of my reviews have been around for years and have a bunch of positive responses (Thumbs ups).

As such, I really am disappointed, that my reviews are being removed and that there is no clear process of appealing (I could only appeal 1 post, the rest did not have this option). I feel like someone decided to report all of my reviews and Google did not really take the time to check and now around half my reviews are being shown as “not posted”.

Has someone else been in this position before? Are there any suggestions on what I could do?

Thank you for your help and all the best,
Ryan

2 Likes
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Hi @Ryan-Hurrell

As far as I can see only one of your 40 reviews is not visible, so you just need to appeal for that one.

Two of your reviews were posted 19 minutes ago and 21 minutes ago, so I don’t see any other issue in there.

Can you kindly provide some more detail for us to better understand the issue?

Also be aware that some review may be sent under moderation, and can be in standby for minutes or hours, so maybe this is what you noticed

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Hi Ermes,

Thank you for your response, and reaching out.

I went into the reviews and edited a few of them, but up until a minute ago they were still showing up as not posted. I just saw after your message that the two you mentioned are no longer flagged.

I back then, thinking nothing helped, copied the text of a bunch of the reviews I made and removed them completely with the goal of re-posting them.

I am worried about what will happen when I repost and if this happens again, what I can do.

I maybe jumped the gun a bit and there is a great solution, but unfortunately I panicked a bit and went into solving mode before asking the question

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@Ryan-Hurrell

Take some deep breath and wait a few days before reposting you reviews. I would repost over a few days rather than reposting all in one session.

Best of luck

Morten

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Thanks for the feedback, @Ryan-Hurrell

Despite the rumors about an harsh filter for reviews, in fact we should always keep in mind that editing our hidden reviews is the first step suggested by Google Maps. As you can read in Flag and fix inappropriate content "If a review you wrote has been flagged and removed, you can fix it yourself. Edit your review to follow Google review policies — for example, you might remove a phone number or URL from the review. Your review will be automatically republished.

Google uses automated spam detection measures to remove reviews that are probably spam. Although legitimate reviews are sometimes inappropriately removed, these spam prevention measures help improve people’s experiences on Google by ensuring that the reviews they see are authentic, relevant, and useful."

If a review still be blocked by the filter you have now the possibility to appeal for every single review, and an operator to check your review and eventually release it.

In any case, to be back to the title of your post, the reviews are checked by an AI, and not by “someone who did not like” it. Also the action of reporting a review will not hide it. Reporting a review will simply activate the check by an operator