A Google community manager, Alistair D., posted a Reviews troubleshooting and FAQs document in the Google Business Profiles forums. It goes through why reviews go missing, how to remove reviews and how to troubleshoot those issues with the Google Business Profiles tools.
Missing Reviews
Alistair wrote, “There are several reasons why reviews may be removed from maps. Usually, missing reviews are removed for policy violations like spam or inappropriate content. Read more about our Review policy guidelines here before proceeding. You can also refer to the Help Center Article for more information.”
Here is what Alistair posted:
Please follow these steps to report missing reviews:
- Contact Support
- Select your business in the drop down menu. (Make sure the business follows all the eligibility guidelines)
- Type Missing Review under ‘Tell us what we can help with’
- Choose Review Missing under ‘Choose the best description of this issue’
In order to help Google expedite your request, include the following information in the description:
- Business Profile ID (Instructions here)
- (Optional) You can add the screenshots of the missing reviews
- How many reviews are missing from the profile?
- Are new reviews being published on the profile?
- What’s the time frame in which the reviews have gone missing? (For example, did they disappear all within the last week? Or have you noticed they were consistently disappearing over a longer period of time?)
- Reviewer Name(s)
- Related Case ID(s)
Video for reference:
Remove Reviews
To report an inappropriate review for removal, you can use Google Maps or Google Search. Removed reviews stop showing on both.
Flag a review in Google Maps
- On your computer, open Google Maps.
- Find your Business Profile.
- Find the review you’d like to report.
- Click More > Flag as inappropriate
Flag a review in the Reviews Management Tool
- Go to the Reviews Management Tool.
- Check that the email address shown is the one you use to manage your Business Profile. Tip: If you use another email address, click Switch account.
- Click Confirm.
- Select your business Report a new review for removal.
- For each review that you want to flag, click Report.
- In the new tab, select a category for the review.
- Click Submit.
You can also refer to the Help Center Article for more information, he added.
Video for reference from Sterling Sky:
Hat tip to @gaganghotra_ for spotting this.
Forum discussion at X.