Google Is Deleting Your Reviews (Even If They're Legit) — Transcript

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1. 0:00Google just wiped thousands of
2. 0:01legitimate customer reviews from local
3. 0:03businesses overnight. Real five-star
4. 0:05reviews from real people who actually
5. 0:07use the service, gone. One business
6. 0:10dropped from over 4,600 reviews down to
7. 0:1263 in less than 24 hours. Another went
8. 0:15from 1,200 to almost zero, and this
9. 0:17wasn't some small glitch. It's hit
10. 0:19dozens of businesses in the last few
11. 0:21days, and honestly, Google still seems
12. 0:23to just be figuring this out. So, here's
13. 0:25exactly what happened and why it matters
14. 0:27more than most people realize, and what
15. 0:29you should actually do about it right
16. 0:31now. The pattern is very consistent
17. 0:34across the reports. A bunch of
18. 0:36businesses get hit with a wave of
19. 0:38obvious fake reviews, the kind that
20. 0:40spammers pump out in bulk. Google's
21. 0:42system kicks in, starts removing the
22. 0:44suspicious ones, and then it overshoots.
23. 0:46It starts taking down real reviews, too.
24. 0:49In some cases, the entire review section
25. 0:51gets wiped or new reviews stop
26. 0:53publishing completely. Google pauses the
27. 0:56ability to leave new reviews on the
28. 0:57profile while they investigate, which is
29. 1:00their way of stopping the bleeding.
30. 1:02Google's official line is that when
31. 1:04their system detects suspicious
32. 1:06activity, they remove reviews and
33. 1:08temporary pause new ones to prevent
34. 1:10further abuse. They said they're
35. 1:11investigating and will restore any
36. 1:13reviews that were incorrectly removed.
37. 1:16Now, that's better than radio silence,
38. 1:18but it doesn't help the business owners
39. 1:20staring at a profile that went from
40. 1:214,600 reviews to 63 overnight. Now, the
41. 1:25part that should concern you is this:
42. 1:27Reviews aren't just a vanity metric.
43. 1:29They're feeding directly into Google's
44. 1:31new AI features like Ask Maps. When
45. 1:34someone asks Google Maps a natural
46. 1:36language question, such as who can fix a
47. 1:38leaking garbage disposal tonight, the AI
48. 1:41is reading the actual words inside your
49. 1:43reviews to decide whether to recommend
50. 1:45you. Generic, you know, great service,
51. 1:47would recommend reviews give the AI
52. 1:50almost nothing to work with. Specific
53. 1:53reviews that mention the exact problem,
54. 1:55the technician, the time of day, or the
55. 1:57outcome, give it real signals it can
56. 1:59match against. Now, that's why this wave
57. 2:01of disappearing reviews hits harder than
58. 2:03it would have even just a couple years
59. 2:04ago. The businesses that were relying on
60. 2:07volume of generic reviews are the most
61. 2:09exposed. The ones with fewer, but highly
62. 2:12specific, attribute-rich reviews are in
63. 2:14a much, much stronger position. So, what
64. 2:17should you actually do? First, go check
65. 2:19your Google Business Profile right now.
66. 2:21Look at your review count and your star
67. 2:23rating. If anything looks off, take
68. 2:25screenshots of the current state, your
69. 2:27review history, hopefully you have it,
70. 2:29and any recent activity. Document
71. 2:32everything. Google has said they'll
72. 2:33restore incorrectly removed reviews, but
73. 2:36having your own records makes the
74. 2:38process much smoother, especially if you
75. 2:41need to push on it. Second, stop asking
76. 2:44for generic reviews. The old, "Hey,
77. 2:46would you mind leaving us a review?"
78. 2:47gets you five stars and a one-sentence
79. 2:49nothing burger that the spam filters
80. 2:51question in bulk. So, change the ask.
81. 2:54Not only does this help keep the review,
82. 2:56it's going to help you keep attributes
83. 2:58on your profile. After a job is done,
84. 3:00send something like, "Hey, thanks for
85. 3:02choosing us. Would you mind sharing what
86. 3:03we fixed and how it went?" That one
87. 3:05small change gets customers describing
88. 3:07the actual service, the outcome, and the
89. 3:08experience in their own words. Those are
90. 3:11the reviews that are harder to fake at
91. 3:12scale and actually help you show up in
92. 3:15AI recommendations. And yes, I know
93. 3:18Google updated their policy on
94. 3:19requesting reviews and said you can't
95. 3:21request reviews with people's names in
96. 3:23it. Notice that language we used didn't
97. 3:26have any employee names in it. Third,
98. 3:29don't let your entire visibility rest on
99. 3:31review count. This is exactly why
100. 3:33building a complete Google Business
101. 3:35Profile matters. Every service you list,
102. 3:38every post you schedule, every photo you
103. 3:40upload, these are all additional
104. 3:42signals. When one signal takes a hit,
105. 3:44the others keep you standing. The
106. 3:46businesses that got crushed in this wave
107. 3:49were often the ones running thin
108. 3:51profiles with basically nothing except a
109. 3:54big old pile of reviews. And fourth,
110. 3:56diversify where your reviews live.
111. 3:58Google's AI overviews, Ask Maps, Chat
112. 4:01GPT, they aren't pulling from just
113. 4:03Google anymore. They're reading Yelp,
114. 4:06Facebook, Angie, and other platforms,
115. 4:08too. If all of your social proof lives
116. 4:10in one place, you're just one
117. 4:12overzealous filter away from looking
118. 4:14invisible to the machines making
119. 4:16recommendations to your customers. The
120. 4:18uncomfortable truth is that Google has
121. 4:21to fight review spam. AI made it too
122. 4:24easy to generate thousands of fake
123. 4:26reviews quickly, so the detection
124. 4:27systems got stricter. The problem is
125. 4:31those systems are still blunt. They
126. 4:33remove real reviews along with the fake
127. 4:35ones, and legitimate businesses pay the
128. 4:38price while Google still tries to figure
129. 4:41out the fix. This is exactly why the
130. 4:43businesses winning right now aren't the
131. 4:45ones with the most reviews. They're the
132. 4:46ones with the deepest, most consistent
133. 4:48entity across their Google Business
134. 4:50Profile and their website. When one part
135. 4:53of the system wobbles, the rest still
136. 4:56holds. If this happened to your profile
137. 4:58or one of your clients' profiles in the
138. 4:59last few days, drop your numbers in the
139. 5:02comments. Before and after if you have
140. 5:04them. I honestly would like to see how
141. 5:06widespread this actually got or if it's
142. 5:09just a relatively small group of people
143. 5:12loudly complaining. And if you want the
144. 5:15exact review request script we use with
145. 5:17clients plus the full checklist for
146. 5:19building a Google Business Profile, what
147. 5:21noises are you making? Big yawn. It's
148. 5:23all inside AI SEO Mastery. The link's in
149. 5:26the description. There's over 3,000
150. 5:28people in there already running this the
151. 5:30right way instead of hoping the Google
152. 5:32Business Profile platform never breaks.
153. 5:35So, this kind of thing is going to keep
154. 5:36happening. The platforms are getting
155. 5:38stricter because the abuse is getting
156. 5:40smarter. The only real protection is
157. 5:42building so many aligned signals that
158. 5:45losing one doesn't take you out of the
159. 5:47game. Now, I built an AI tool that
160. 5:49handles a lot of this for you, and I'm
161. 5:51going to do a full walk-through of that
162. 5:53tool in this next video. I'll see you
163. 5:54there.