Why Your Google Reviews Aren't Showing Up
(Plus, How To Fix It)

Reason #1: The Review Violates Google’s Policies

The most common reason a Google review isn't showing up is that it violated guidelines. Your customers aren't necessarily well-versed in Google's policies, so they may not know that some actions will cause their reviews to disappear. In addition, your own violations of Google policy could come back to haunt you.

Common issues include:

1. Failing to include details about your services or their experiences at your business. (A one-line review reading "Good," for example, may be removed.)
2. The review contains explicit content, hate speech, abusive language, profanity, or derogatory language. 
3. The user wrote the review in a foreign language. 
4. The user inappropriately shared personal information in the review. Or, in sharp contrast, the review was written anonymously.
5. Google has reason to believe the user isn't a real customer. False positives can happen.
6. Google has reason to believe you paid for or incentivized the review. This is a big problem, as it can cause Google to delete all your reviews while penalizing your search rankings.

Solution: If a review violates Google's guidelines, you will not get it back. You may contact your customer and ask them to submit a new review. When generating future reviews, encourage customers to mention the services you provided them and even upload a photo or two.

Reason #2: Your Business Listing Has Technical Issues

If your Google Business Profile is out-of-date, duplicated, unverified, inactive, or suspended, this will affect your reviews. You might also see issues with reviews if you recently merged two business listings. Google reviews left prior to your opening date will also disappear.

If you're an active client with Projects Plus Marketing, chances are this isn't the problem. We continually and meticulously monitor your Google Business Listings.

Solution: If you are managing your Google Business Profile yourself, identify issues by logging into the Business Profile Manager linked to your account. Remove unverified duplicate listings and verify your profile before you launch a review generation campaign. Inactive listings may need to be re-verified.

It can take some time to sort out reviews on recently merged listings. If that's the case for you, simply wait a couple of weeks for your reviews to show up.

You can also contact the marketing team at Projects Plus to fix these issues.

Reason #3: Google Thinks There’s a Conflict of Interest

Google does not accept reviews when there is a conflict of interest, such as reviews from current or former employees or competitors. This serves as a protection for home service business owners from spammy reviews.

Solution: Unfortunately, Google sometimes mistakenly flags a review as spam. If you believe this is the case, contact Google's support team for help. You'll likely need proof that the review is real, like relevant screenshots.

Reason #4: User Deletions 

Each review is linked to an individual account, and users are free to delete any review they've written at any time for any reason. A user might even decide to delete their entire profile, removing every review they've ever written.

Solution: You cannot reinstate reviews a user deleted. The best thing to do is to generate new reviews to make up for the loss.

Reason #5: Gremlins

Google is like any other online platform; sometimes it gets buggy and throws an error. The operating systems and browsers customers use to leave reviews could also have bugs. While it's rare, this could be the cause of your disappearing review.

Solution: If you believe your Google review is not showing up due to this error, contact Google support. Explain in detail the issue you're having and request that your reviews be reinstated.

Projects Plus: Your Advisor to Google Review Management

Generating and managing Google reviews takes time and effort. Projects Plus Marketing streamlines the process with our contractor marketing services. We consult with each client, addressing their key issues and goals, including Google review management. Contact us today for more information.