Understand missing & delayed reviews

1. Embedded Links in Google Reviews

Google has strict guidelines when it comes to adding URLs and links in reviews. Reviews that have URLs are removed almost instantly.

This is because Google considers reviews with URLs in them to probably be spam. If you see a review with a link and it hasn’t yet been removed, try to get in touch with the customer and ask them to edit their review to remove the link before Google takes it down.

 2. Google Review Marked as Spam

Quality is of the utmost priority to Google, so they’re rigorous in removing any spam reviews.

For a review to not be considered spam, it must align with Google’s review policy about Prohibited and Restricted content. Plus, Google also flags reviews marked as spam by others.

3. Fake Google Reviews

Google marks reviews made from profiles without a name, photo and other important details as fake Google reviews because Google wants to uphold authenticity and transparency. 

In many cases, fake reviews are submitted when a business resorts to buying Google reviews. In such cases, most of these reviews are created by bots using fake profiles.

Therefore, buying reviews for your business can lead to severe problems for your business’ presence on Google and can even lead to the removal of your Google Business Profile.

4. Google Reviews Temporarily Disabled

When traffic is too high and Google has limited working members on its team, it has in the past resorted to disabling the review section of Google Business Profiles for a temporary period.

For instance, this happened at the outset of the ongoing global health pandemic when Google temporarily disabled reviews.

In such times, it’s common for reviews to go missing. Also, customers won’t be able to leave new reviews and you won’t be able to respond to any existing ones.