How Can I Deal With Negative Reviews On Google Local?

Negative reviews and Bad SEO are becoming an issue for the people who own small businesses. Where in today’s online world, it’s very easy to create a new account and comment either a positive or negative review for any business no matter whether you’ve ever tried to hire them. There are tons of policies made by Google for users that leave reviews. But sometimes these reviews are awful at spreading contravention of these policies. 

Challenges That Are Faced With Negative Reviews On Google

As we all know Google works on algorithms, so it doesn’t have any idea who your customers are. So, at this point, it becomes quite challenging for you. To add on, Google will not accept “this wasn’t a customer” as an admissible reason to get rid of a review.  Because it lets people use unidentified usernames. Whereas, most of the time, it becomes an arduous task to prove the identity of someone online.

Another challenge can be that an individual need not be a customer to be qualified to leave a review. They need to have a “customer experience,” – that can be anything from getting your voicemail to trying to call you and  dropping by your office and just browsing here and there.

How to respond To Negative Reviews?

When you’ve worked hard so hard to build a good, social business, it’s maddening when any arbitrary person has knocked down what took you years to build. It’s a little bit upsetting when such reviews come in. What you should simply do is remain calm and think about what your future expectations will be when you come across such reviews and how you respond to it. It’s that simple and easy.

How to Identify and Broadcast a Fraud Google Review?

There are many ways to remove those annoying hoax reviews.

1. You need to go to the reviews on Google Maps. Then click on the three vertical dots at the top which is to the right of the review, and then click “Flag as improper.” An important point to note- i, e. DO NOT select this until YOU ARE SURE IT IS FAKE. You might be penalized by Google if you have a surplus of reviews that you are flagging and they turn out to be legal.
2. If the hands behind these fake negative reviews is your competitor, then undoubtedly the first step is to get in touch with them and appeal that they make an end of the activity and erase all the fake reviews. If they don’t, listen to you, then you always have an option of divulging them to the Better Business Bureau and the local Chamber of Commerce.

Ways Of Getting Rid Off Negative Google Reviews

The only way to get your hands off a negative Google review is by removing it if it goes against Google’s guidelines, that is written as follows:

Spam and malicious content: Any fake content that is considered to boost rankings sinks in this category. Online listings have started to take severe measures on people who leave fake reviews. 

Many local search directories have automated filters that aim to alleviate fake reviews from being published on local business listings. However, some still seem to fall behind the cracks. In such cases, you can point out the discussions to bring them to Google’s attention directly. You can identify a fake review by looking for signs like absurdly generic reviews, pointless usernames, non-human avatars, identical reviews left by the same person for different business purposes, or multiple reviews published by the same reviewer in a short period.

Unrelated topic: If the content seems to be off-topic related to personal, social, or political commentary, it can be deleted. If you see any inappropriate content and racial terms in a review, become a primary ground for removal. That includes explicit material, hate speech, offensive content, harassment, and bullying. If you go against Google’s guidelines and policy, then you may be restricted from reviews.

Offensive content – When one person uses more than one Google account to leave more than one review, then that person is also not following Google’s review guidelines and can be flagged for removal. Sometimes they can ask their friends to use their accounts, or they could generate numerous fake accounts. 

 Sexually blunt, Dangerous & depreciate content

Content that is a mockery – At times, businesses take drastic steps to beat their competitors in the local search results. And, this may result in hurting a competitor’s online reputation. If you are in the same industry and the same genre, and you get a bad review from one person in a brief period,, this is a sign that the person behind the reports is your competitor.

Conflict of interest: Your employees cannot review your business, or you cannot review yourself or a competitor’s business.

You must follow the step mentioned above to flag the negative review you want it to be deleted. Follow the process below to contact Google about taking it down:

1. First, go to your Google My Business profile
2. Click on “Support” on the bottom left of the navigating panel
3. When the help box appears, click-through “Need more help,” and then to”customer reviews and photos,” then “handle customer reviews,” then “email support.”

So before proving any review is slander against your company, you must have enough evidence, only then you can fill out Google’s legal removal request form.

How a Tool Can Be Useful to Keep a Track On Your Reviews

The only way to stay top of all your reviews,- whether it is negative,m positive, or fake is by assimilating a tool that tracks all your reviews. It will help you to stay on top of negative and false reviews so you can retaliate or flag them immediately before they reach out to many people. 

Positive reviews are stronger enough to drown out negative commentaries. Make sure to ask your happy customers to leave Google reviews about your services and products! This positive feedback from your customers can persuade others to do business with you in the long run, and they can also greatly confer to your local SEO.

So always be aware of reviews on Google, Facebook, and other review platforms. The reputation decides your future and will be better for your business!