Why Don’t I See The Option to Write a Review on Google?
Did you know that in rare cases Google will remove the “write a review’ feature from a Google listing? Recently, a user posted in the maps forum that they were unable to leave a review for a police station in Brisbane, Australia. When I asked Google about it, I was advised that this is working as intended. Google will remove the feature to prevent spam abuse.
I wanted to see if this was happening in other cases so I checked several listings for businesses that are notorious for negative review attacks. I found another example that was missing the option for a user to write a review: Roman Stone Works. Their listing was attacked twice after they fired an employee for posting an Elmo meme on his day off. However, there are other listings that have had similar review attacks that can still get reviews. For example, Dr. Palmer is the dentist that shot and killed Cecil the Lion. His listing can still receive new reviews. The Google listing for Aaron M. Schlossberg (a lawyer) has been under constant attack ever since he went viral in a supermarket. The GMB listing still being trashed by users.
We have also seen a few cases of random businesses that have lost the write a review feature as well so, at this point, we can’t decipher what prompts Google to take away this feature or how to enable it.
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I see reviews from some people not showing up on GMBs. It is not across the board though and only on some profiles it is invisible to everyone else besides the person that created the review. It still shows for them.
Hey Bruce,
This sounds like the review filter which I covered in a bit more detail here: https://whitespark.ca/blog/google-remove-reviews/
It’s COVID-19 related. Saw them switched on 23 March and back on 9 April.
Hey Rachel,
These examples are different than what’s going on for COVID-19. Google paused review functionality in March on all listings but you could still leave a review and the review button was still on the listing. Google says they plan on publishing those reviews later (that were left in the last few weeks). In these cases, there is no ability to leave a review on the listing at all and it’s due to spam blocks and not COVID-19.
I think my email may have been blocked from leaving reviews due to one bad review I left for a business. I can’t leave reviews on any business now.
Hey Mary,
If your account has been incorrectly blacklisted, you can submit an appeal here: https://support.google.com/local-guides/contact/local_guides_appeal
So basically google reviews are absolutely useless and can be manipulated.