I happened to notice recently that a review of mine of a local business was missing. It shows up for me when I’m logged in, but the review doesn’t display when viewing the business when logged out, for example.
The review wasn’t scathing but it wasn’t a ringing endorsement, either. It included pictures of some work that I think the business was probably not very proud of.
I understand that sometimes reviews will get hidden because they violate Google’s content policy or that businesses can request that reviews get removed. As someone who relies upon Google reviews to make decisions, though, I’m a little distressed that my honest review might have been hidden without having been notified or being given an opportunity to ensure it complied with the content policy or dispute the owner’s removal request (if that is in fact what happened).
Does anyone know how to get a hidden review restored or troubleshoot if this is some technical issue?
Thanks in advance for your help!
1 Like
Hello @derekdehart ,
Yes, you are absolutely correct, if the contributions violet the Google Content Policies, they are not made public. Kindly go through the Google Content Policies.
You may wish to fill out Account Investigation Form to request for reinstating your review. The process takes couple of weeks and you may not get any acknowledgement from Google. This is a manual process and hence give some time and team will look into it. If found okay, review will be reinstated else the status quo.
Keep building informed community stronger 
together.
JAI HO!!!
@derekdehart
I checked your profile and only one review is not published. That is a lot better than 90% Local Guides.
You should be able to edit your review to make it public rather than using the form that takes weeks.
Keep in mind that the photos are now also evaluated by the spam filter. So you could check if one of your photos might be what is blocking your review from going public. You can test by removing your images one by one and checking for each if the text goes public.
Best of luck
Morten
If your problem persists please feel free to share the text and the photos in a reply below.
Cheers
Morten
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Thanks for the response! How is it that you see that only one review is not published? It’s not obvious to me how someone would check that.
Do you happen to know if editing the review to make it public will also work in the event the business has requested that it be hidden?
1 Like
@derekdehart
It would be very helpful if you would use the tagging tool when replying to someone here on Connect. Type @ followed by the username. Type slowly. Then we get an e-mail notification and you are more likely to get a prompt reply. Just hitting Reply does not ensure we get notified by email.
Your profile is public and anyone can check your contributions.
If you are on a Desktop use this link to Count your hidden contributions. From a mobile device use this link.
If you want to identify which of your reviews are hidden check this post.
Cheers
Morten
1 Like
@MortenCopenhagen thank you for the amazing content. I also read up on violations that could cause a review to become hidden. The thing is that it’s a 3-star review that just details the facts of my working with the business and posts some photos of the work they performed – it’s a construction company.
Based on your experience, is there anything about this review that stands out to you as a reason it would get hidden?
–
After almost six months and dozens of calls, emails, face-to-face meetings, and texts, the work I contracted [business] to perform on my porch is complete.
tl;dr I’m not entirely satisfied with their attention to detail or communication, but the team stepped up when it mattered and worked hard to solve the problems with their initial work.
I hired [business] to replace the boards on my porch and slope the boards away from my house after a different contractor botched a similar job and ghosted me after I tried to get him to fix it.
You can see from the photos that the work [business] performed wasn’t very neat, but if you’re not paying very close attention the porch looks good and is structurally sound. They came out at no cost after a couple of months of prodding to clean up some of the rougher cuts, which was nice of them to do.
As we were coordinating the work to clean up some of the carpentry on the boards, we discovered that rain would leak into my basement from the porch and also that there was an area where the boards dipped, causing water to pool on the porch rather than shed away from the house. [business] worked diligently to solve these problems and even did some complementary work to bolster the structure of the porch in spite of my offering to pay for additional materials.
I’m not sure whether I’ll contract them for additional work on my home, but I can at least confidently say that the folks at [business] are good people who genuinely care about doing right by their customers.
@derekdehart
It’s a lot longer than the recommended 1 paragraph.
I don’t see any violations.
Did you test if removing the photos solves the problem? I’m optimistic it will.
Keep in mind that photos should clearly show the place, så sharing a bunch of photos from a job is not showing the place.
Also, keep in mind that the spam filter that removed the review can have done so for other reasons than something inside the review. It keeps track of your over all performance and track record.
Did you mention, that you suspect the business can have removed the review? They can not. Only if the review violates the guidelines they can ask Google to take it down. I’m 95% sure this is not the case here. Because I see no violations.
Cheers
Morten
Thanks @MortenCopenhagen I’ll try removing some of the photos to see if that helps. I commonly see work from construction companies posted as photos that accompany reviews, so it’s strange that would flag the review. It’s also strange that the review was originally posted publicly but then hidden only after I had made some edits as my work with the business continued.
In your experience, how long does it take to know if edits or removing photos resolved the problem?
1 Like
@derekdehart
The reviews are evaluated by the spamfilter immediately after your hit submit. So just open your incognito tab and hit refresh to check.
I know that others also so add worksite photos but that is not a valid excuse 
All the best
Morten
Now we have restrictions on the length of the reviews?
@MortenCopenhagen thanks again for all of your help. I removed one particular photo that was a screenshot, and that resulted in the review becoming public again. In case it helps others, I didn’t modify the length or remove any of the photos of the work the business performed.
If anyone’s interested, here’s the review in question: https://maps.app.goo.gl/i48ruULoecENZKJAA
Wonderful, thanks for the feedback, @derekdehart
Cheers
Morten