How to Remove Negative Google Reviews

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Every bit an attorney in the digital age, managing your google reviews is essential to the success of your practice.

A steady stream of glowing reviews will establish credibility, heave visibility, and give prospects the confidence they need to attain out to you. Negative reviews, on the other hand, tin can do serious damage to how the public views your business concern. Even a single review can often be enough to frighten prospects away.

Plus, having too many negative reviews may keep your Google My Business listing or Google Local Service ads from showing upwards in search results.

So, if y'all've received a negative review, can you remove information technology? While at that place isn't an selection to automatically remove a review, y'all can flag a review for removal. Google will then assess your request and make a final determination.

Here's what y'all need to know.

How to Request Removal of a Negative Review on Google

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First, it'due south worth noting that Google won't remove a review just because it paints your practise in a bad calorie-free. Google simply removes reviews that violate their policies. They list ten reasons for removing reviews:

  • Spam and fake content
  • Off-topic content
  • Restricted content
  • Illegal content
  • Terrorist content
  • Sexually explicit content
  • Offensive content
  • Dangerous and derogatory content
  • Impersonation
  • Disharmonize of interest

If a review meets at least ane of those criteria, y'all can flag it for removal. Hither's how:

  1. Sign into your Google account
  2. Navigate to the reviews section of your Google My Business organization profile or Google Maps listing
  3. Locate the specific review
  4. Click the three dots to the right of the review
  5. Select "Flag every bit inappropriate" from the dropdown menu
  6. In the window that appears, select how the review violates Google's policies
  7. Click the blueish "Submit" button

You can likewise use the new Google My Business organization review direction tool to flag problematic reviews. For this method, you should:

  1. Log into your Google My Business organisation account
  2. Visit Google's "Manage Your Reviews" page
  3. Choose which business or office location the review was left for (you may but have one, of course)
  4. Select "Report a new review for takedown" and click "Proceed"
  5. Discover the review you want to remove and click the "Report a problem" link on the right hand side

But with either method, y'all'll ultimately be at the mercy of Google's support squad. Information technology may take several days for them to evaluate your request, and fifty-fifty then, they rarely remove reviews.

Nevertheless, there are steps you can accept to arrive more than likely that Google volition delete the review. Permit'south discuss those now.

How to Meliorate the Likelihood That a Review Will Exist Removed

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Don't Wait

Google has never explicitly stated that they're more likely to consider removing a recent review than an quondam one. However, there'southward no doubt that Google places a greater emphasis on newer reviews in some other ways. Information technology stands to reason that they also pay more attending to removal requests when the review is contempo.

Regardless, don't await likewise long to flag a negative review. The longer information technology'south there, the more than harm it will practise.

Remove Any Replies

If you've already left a reply, make sure to delete it earlier flagging the review. Google is less likely to remove a review if there are comments attached.

Call In Some Backup

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To increase your chances of getting Google's attention, send multiple reports for the same review. If yous have multiple Google accounts nether your control, apply them all. (This doesn't violate whatsoever policies.)

Yous tin likewise enlist your colleagues, staff, or even family to flag the review every bit well. The more accounts that submit a report, the ameliorate.

Broaden Your Offense

Sometimes, a review volition violate more than one of Google's policies. For example, it may be sexually explicit and off-topic at the aforementioned fourth dimension. If that's the case, y'all can send a dissever report for each violation. This volition arrive more than likely that Google will prioritize your request and take definitive activeness.

Have a Fallback Plan

No affair how you become about flagging a review, Google may still leave it in place. Their user support is hardly reliable in this regard. If Google doesn't reply to your request—or flat out denies information technology—you'll need to deal with the review some other way.

Your first instinct may be to lash out at the unfair or offensive review, but that volition merely make a bad state of affairs worse. Nil says unprofessional like losing your temper and calling people names.

Instead, remain ceremonious. If the reviewer has any actual complaints nigh your business organization, answer them honestly using courteous language. Demonstrate that you take their concerns seriously. If there are any misunderstandings involved, practise your best to explicate what happened.

You might fifty-fifty invite them to contact you directly. If yous're able to accomplish an understanding with them, there's a good chance that they'll have the review down themselves.

But ultimately, the all-time way to deal with negative reviews is to drown them out with positive ones. Adding several new positive reviews will push a negative review downward, making information technology less accessible to casual visitors. And while a negative rating will ding your average star rating, new v-star reviews will quickly meliorate your boilerplate. Thus, by attracting more glowing reviews for your practise, yous won't accept to worry as much about the impact of a few nasty comments hither or there.

Too keep in mind that about people don't expect that all reviews for a business volition be perfect and, in fact, wonder when they are!

Don't Allow Negative Reviews Hurt Your Online Reputation

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For many attorneys and law firms, the occasional bad review is merely a part of life on the internet. That doesn't mean information technology has to permanently tarnish your reputation, though. Past taking the correct steps, you lot may exist able to become your negative reviews deleted altogether. If that doesn't piece of work, you can at least minimize the damage.

Of course, maintaining an effective online presence takes time and energy. As a busy professional, you may not have much of either to spare. If yous'd rather let someone else deal with the headaches, nosotros'd be happy to lend a manus.

At Allow America Know, we give trial attorneys across the nation the support they need to kick their net marketing strategies into overdrive. Just arrive touch with united states of america, and we'll make sure yous get the most out of your social media profiles and email campaigns.

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