Remove reviews | Turn off reviews | Flag reviews | Handling bad reviews
Reviews on Google are one of the best ways to boost your online visibility and climb local SEO rankings, so they can form an important part of any business’s marketing strategy. So if you’re wondering ‘can I turn off Google reviews for my business?’ you’re not alone.
Every business has its fair share of negative reviews, which can come from a place of honesty or sometimes from an attempt to sabotage or discredit your company. Whatever the case, negative reviews can be hard to stomach, especially if you strongly disagree with what the customer has said. To that end, it only makes sense that you would want to remove individual reviews or even turn off reviews altogether on Google. In this guide we’re going to explore whether or not these actions are possible, so you can act accordingly.
Can you remove Google Reviews?
Unfortunately, just as the answer to the question ‘can I turn off Google reviews for my business?’ is no, there isn’t a way to have Google reviews removed from your GMB page either.
That’s not to say that a Google review can’t be removed, just that you are powerless to make that happen.
What you can do is prevent people from creating new reviews, which can be helpful when you suspect that a group of people are trying to discredit your business with a barrage of false, negative reviews.
The only way Google will intervene and actually have a review taken down from the platform is if it is in direct violation of their guidelines.
The grounds for removing a review according to Google’s guidelines are as follows:
- Off-topic
- Terrorist content
- Illegal content
- Sexually explicit content
- Impersonation
- Conflict of interest
- Offensive content
- Spam or fake content
- Restricted content
- Derogatory content
As such, if you believe that a review goes against Google’s guidelines, you can contact the service and request that they look into it.
To do so, the best course of action is to simply flag the review for removal, which is something we’ll show you how to do later.
Can you turn off reviews on google?
If you’ve ever asked ‘can I turn off Google reviews for my business?’, but didn’t get a clear answer, we’re here to tell you that unfortunately you can’t remove reviews or turn them off.
As we mentioned in the previous section, one thing you can do if you don’t want to receive reviews temporarily is to have them turned off for a brief period of time. This isn’t a long-term solution, though, and the main reason for doing this should be to deter detractors of your business from sending through fake negative reviews to damage your reputation.
While this might be frustrating to hear, when you think about it, it makes sense that businesses wouldn’t be allowed to simply turn off reviews on Google.
Why?
Because it promotes full transparency, so that customers know exactly what experience others have had with the business in question. If you suspect foul play, there are actions you can take to have reviews removed, but otherwise they will remain on your GMB listing.
If you have more negative reviews than you’d like, then it’s a good idea to get on top of the problem by adopting a proactive approach. Rather than lamenting the tarnish on your business caused by these reviews, do your best to ensure that people have nice things to say about your company in future.
A few things you can do to promote more favorable reviews include interacting with the reviews you currently have, rethinking your services factoring in user feedback, and thinking about how to improve your customer support.
How to flag a review?
It’s possible to flag reviews on your GMB listing, which will bring them to the attention of Google. Here’s how you can do that:
- Head to Google Maps and locate your business page
- Click on ‘Reviews’ and find the review you wish to flag
- Over the star rating, when logged into your Google account, you’ll see an option to ‘Flag as inappropriate’
What to do about bad reviews?
If you have bad reviews, there are several things you can do to counteract the effect they may have on your company’s reputation.
Get more reviews
A few negative reviews shouldn’t have a significant impact on your business, especially if you can bury them under many more positive reviews.
Go out and collect more reviews from your customer base, by soliciting feedback through social media and other platforms, and you should be able to sweep the negative reviews under the rug providing the latest reviews are positive in nature.
Respond to bad reviews
Interacting with the bad reviews is a great way to take away their impact, as other customers see that you are willing to engage and respond to critical feedback.
Learn and grow from bad reviews
As well as responding to bad reviews, you should also make sure to heed the words of the customer and take the feedback on board.
Use the feedback to improve your business and customer service.
Do a few bad reviews mean a bad online reputation or not?
Generally speaking, no, a few bad reviews aren’t going to cause irreparable damage to your business’s online reputation.
With that being said, if a few turn into a lot, then you might run into problems.
Plus, a few negative reviews now can snowball into many negative reviews later down the line if you fail to address some of the core issues raised by your customers. If you aren’t willing to take customer feedback onboard or improve the service you offer, then it makes sense that you will continue to receive negative reviews.
To stop the bad reviews from harming your reputation you need to be prepared to interact with reviews, so that customers know you’re working on improving your services and have the customer in mind as you do so.
You want every customer to feel valued, otherwise they’ll be more likely to pick up on and point out the negative aspects of your products or services.
