Can I turn off the Question and Answer (Q&A) section in Google My Business?

A lot of business owners don’t realize that random people can ask and answer questions on your Google My Business (GMB) listing.  It is a section of your GMB knowledge panel that needs to be monitored, which is not something that busy business owners want to have to deal with.  For example, if you run a beauty salon, you probably don’t want customers seeing a comment like this that makes it look like you overcharge:

Can I turn off Q&A?

In most scenarios businesses are not able to turn off or disable the GMB Google Q&A feature on their listing.   The one exception to this is if the business is getting slammed with demeaning comments from users due to a public media incident.  For example, the stone supplier referenced in this article had his Q&A section disabled after users blasted it with questions that had to do with the social media scandal.

Google doesn’t always do this by default.  Another business that had an incident like this last year still has its Q&A feature enabled and users continue to leave politically-charged comments.  If you run a business that experiences a scenario like this, I’d suggest contacting Google My Business to request they remove it.

What Can I do about spam posted in the Q&A section?

If you have a question or answer that is breaking Google’s guidelines, you have the ability to flag the issue and it will be checked within a few days.  To do this, click the little 3 dots at the top corner and press the flag button.