At least in Europe, places deleting negative reviews is a big Problem. There are agencys that will request a deleting of all Reviews with 3 stars and less, in most cases they name diffamation or a missing customer contact. This doen´t only demotivate Local Guides, but also people who just want to share a expericence they had with a business. This leads to Google Reviews not being reliable anymore. Yeah, there are ways to write a 99% bullet proof review, but especially non- Local Guides don´t know them.
So I´d like to ask if you could inplemente a disclaimer for places who requested the removing of Reviews in the past. It could be something simple like a textfield saying “ This PLace has requested the removal of Reviews in the past” on the Maps- Business-page located under the rating. It would improve the reliability of Reviews and encourage business owners to respond to negative Reviews instead of simply deleting them.
Places with some negative reviews AND this disclaimer also would look trustworthy, because the Deletion could be reasonable, whereas places with only positive Reviews and the Disclaimer would look more suspicious.
I´d like to hear what you think about this Idea. Cheers
I don’t think that Google deletes any random review or negative ones as you’re saying until and unless the reviews contains any harsh language. If the spam-filter finds the negative reviews are intentionally targeting the business, they’re paid, coming from devices those are closer or being contacted with each other then the spam-filter may remove those reviews as per my experience.
Thanks for sharing my reply, @WilfriedB
Hi @Rvlas , this is a very well known issue in Germany, caused by a black hole in the German law about defamation. In fact Google also is aware of the issue, as you can read in
And yes, in Germany there are a lot of legal agencies that are offering their services to remove the negative reviews using the defamation law as a leverage for that.
A disclaimer, as you suggested, could be a good idea. That’s why I always suggest to appeal, for the reviews to be reinstated and for Google to take notes of that.
A disclaimer already exists for business that are identified as "used to have fake reviews ’ so why not to implement it also for the German case?
C.c. @Shaunak
I know, @Shaunak , that’s why I want to investigate every specific report before to answer. Long time ago I decided to give less answers, but all customised and made after a personal check. It takes time, but I believe that who post about an issue want to have a personal answer, not a generic one.
The world is big, and in every country Google has to follow the Local laws