How to flag and request the removal of a fake, invalid or negative Google review?

97% of consumers conduct local company searches online, making your Google reviews visible to them. What do you do when there is a fake, invalid or negative review?

Having fake, invald or negative Google reviews on your Google Business Profile will likely lead your potential customers to a competitor. Your business will benefit from not having a string of negative Google reviews.  In order to ensure the integrity of its reviews, Google does not allow business owners to simply delete their Google reviews. Due to this, the only way to get rid of a negative review is to flag it and ask for its removal. As a business listing owner, you can only flag a review if it violates any of Google’s contribution terms (below). 

Google’s Contribution Terms:

• Illegal Content

• Offensive or Explicit Content

• Impersonation

• Fake Google reviews or Spam

• Irrelevant Comments

Steps to flag the inaccurate review:

Step 1: Open Google Maps and search for your business. Use your business name or address to do so.

Step 2: After selecting your business from the search results, go to “Review Summary.”

Step 3: Click on the number of reviews and scroll to find the bad reviews you’re looking to flag.

Step 4: Select the flag icon from the three-dot menu vertical.

Step 5: Fill out the form in the window that displays and then submit

To get Google's attention, you can ask multiple people to flag the bad review. However, we recommend not overdoing it.

Upon reviewing your request, Google may remove the review if they believe it violates their contribution guidelines. It should be noted, however, that flagging a review doesn't guarantee its removal.

Can you contact Google to explain your request to remove the review? 

Yes, You must contact Google Business Support for options to reach out, one of which includes signing into your business account and then submitting the Google contact form.  The contact form is provided so you can describe your problem in more detail and send it by email. Sending this email to Google Business Support requires you to respond to a few common inquiries about your business. The Google Support team will then communicate back and forth until the review is removed. Our recommendation would be to take this route only if you have a compelling reason for considering removing the unfavorable review.