How to Remove Bad Reviews from Google
Getting your customers to writing positive reviews on Google+ Local for your company is a great way to drive traffic to your site and increase your search rankings. On the flip side, someone might post an unfavorable review of your business. We get asked by our clients how they might go about removing a negative rating or review that was posted on their Google Places listing.
So Can I Get Rid of Negative Posted Reviews on Google Places?
The short answer is No. As far as Google is concerned, a review is a review – good or bad. Same goes for other review sites such as Yelp, Yahoo, CitySearch, Angie’s List, etc. You can, however, take some steps to push that review farther down the screen or even onto the next page and thus decreasing it’s significance.
Get More POSITIVE Reviews.
Keep asking your satisfied customers to post positive reviews from the heart. It would be advisable to spread these reviews out, having posts being made every few days/weeks versus all at once. In addition, encourage your customers to write reviews on other popular review sites as well.
Don’t Ignore, RESPONSE.
As the owner of the Google+ Local page, you should respond to any negative comments within your Google Places profile. Taking the high road when responding to negative reviews. Don’t argumentative or childish. Stay polite and professional at all times. Response back with something along the lines of “We are so sorry you feel this way. We hope we can make your next visit a better experience”.
Ask Your Happy Customers for HELP
Ask your willing customers to click “No” and “Flag as inappropriate” where it says “was this review helpful?” This should hopefully let Google know that this review is not relevant and doesn’t offer the end user a true representation of your business.
With Google’s recently replacing its Google Maps and Google Places with Google + Local, Google is attempting to tackle the challenge of increasing the authenticity of reviews by revoking the ability for one to post reviews anonymously. Going forward, if you want to post a review on Google+ Local, you must log in with your Google + profile and use your real name. Only time will tell if this new approach will encourage or discourage people from writing online reviews, positive or negative.
