I recently posted a negative review about an online retailer due to what I believe were violations of pricing regulations. The review was an honest account of my experience. After posting, the business owner called me, strongly objected to my review, and ended the conversation with what I perceived as a threat. I later updated my review to reflect this additional interaction and checked it several times for accuracy.
Today, I noticed that none of my reviews are visible under my profile, and I have not received any communication from Google about this change. Could someone please explain why my reviews were deactivated? Additionally, what steps should I take to reactivate them?
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Hello @Hamidos , I am sorry for your situation. I tried to look at your gmaps but couldn’t as it was restricted. Please have a look at the link below for more information on how to appeal form : An update on how we moderate Google Maps reviews
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@Hamidos , welcome to Connect, and thank you for asking.
Obviously we cannot see your review, so I have to respond only based on what you said, better detailed here below.
If you believe that your review is following the policies you can appeal for the team to check it. The link to the Appeal form is in the post suggested to @PrasadVR , but I will repeat it here: Account investigation for contributions not visible on Google Maps .
In any case I would like to add a couple of notes, based on the additional details provided by you here
- You wrote: “Now, all my reviews are publicly visible except the one about this business. However, when I log out, no reviews show under my profile”. You cannot see any review under your profile when you are logged out, for the simple reason that your account is intentionally restricted by you.
It means that you can see your contributions only when you are logged in, but the contributions are hidden for others.
To change the restriction you have to tap on your avatar in the app, then select Settings > Personal Content > scroll down the page to reach Profile privacy and switch the selector to Off (Grayed out)
After that you will be able to see your public profile, and to understand what is publicly visible
- You wrote: “I took a screenshot of his response, and updated my review to include this interaction and the fact that he later changed his response. I added the screenshot of his original reply as a photo for evidence”. This is a big NO, and I am not surprised if after that your review was made private. A review is not a conversation nor a fight with a business. A review is a way to share our feeling and experience about a place, so first of all I would try to edit the review removing the screenshot. Also please keep in mind that if what we say in the review can have some legal implication Google will most probably remove it. Here you are mentioning “violations of pricing regulations”. Writing this may lead to two different considerations:
- If this is a violation of the law the better think to do is to repost it to the police, not in a review
- A business can invite you to legally respond for defamation, as you are publicly accusing to violate the law
So Google will take your review down, first of all to avoid a dispute and second, to protect you
Please keep this into consideration when writing a review
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Hi @ErmesT and @Hamidos
The restricted profile setting is sometimes called “Show your posts on your profile” as shown above. Maybe it is os dependent.
Cheers
Morten
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Thank you so much, @PrasadVR , @ErmesT, and @MortenCopenhagen, for your valuable contributions.
@PrasadVR, thank you for sharing the form. It looks like it could be handy one day. By the way, do you know how to report intimidation and threats from businesses following a negative review to Google?
@ErmesT, your advice was incredibly helpful. I followed your suggestions and am pleased to report that my review is back online. Thank you so much!
@MortenCopenhagen, I am using an Android phone. The restricted profile settings are exactly as @ErmesT described.
Thank you all once again for your help!
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You are welcome, @Hamidos , I am happy to see that your issue has been fixed. For this reason I am flagging my reply as the solution of the post, as it is solved and the procedure can help others with the same issue. For more details about the solution feature please read: How do I mark comments as solutions?
Let me add a note about tagging people: Copying the username doesn’t work. To generate a “xxx mentioned you” notification you have to type @ then to select the username of the person you want to mention (or to type it), like in the screenshot here below
Active members receive a lot of notification every day, so they can miss yours if they are not informed about the mention. For this reason I will tag them, @MortenCopenhagen , @PrasadVR
Regarding your last question, as the business is claimed, the best solution is to report it on the Google Business Profile Community. Simply write a post in there asking for an indication. When I do this I usually avoid to share the link of the business, and I wait to a reply with a Product Expert to build a private line of reporting
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Hello @Hamidos , I am pleased to note that @ErmesT 's suggestion helped you to come out of the bad situation. All the best!
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Thank you for the tip @ErmesT
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