Getting, answering, reporting and understanding Google reviews. Every article answers one question, checked against Google’s own help pages, with the date.
A former employee posts a critical review of the company. The marketing team wants to answer. HR wants to investigate. A manager wants to explain what “really happened.” Those are three different goals. Employee review sites are not the same as Google customer reviews. The audience is often: job seekers; current employees; former employees; recruiters;…
Not automatically. A public customer review is not blanket permission to use its text, name or photo in advertising. Before reuse, check the necessary rights and permissions, preserve the review’s meaning, and follow the advertising rules for the relevant market and platform. On this page Short answer Why does public not mean unrestricted? What parts…
A business wants more reviews. It puts a tablet near reception and asks customers to sign in and leave a Google review before they go. At first glance, that sounds convenient. But the device is owned by the business, used by many people and may require customers to sign into personal Google Accounts. That creates…
If someone demands money, goods, services or another favor in exchange for removing existing negative Google reviews, Google provides a dedicated merchant extortion reporting route. Preserve the demand, review links, dates and contact details, and do not pay or bargain for removal. A broader threat to continue posting negative reviews should still be documented, but Google’s published special-channel definition should not be expanded beyond what its guidance states.
You can measure review activity and compare it with Google Business Profile interactions such as website clicks, call-button clicks and directions, plus downstream website or booking conversions where your setup supports them. But a traceable profile-to-enquiry or booking path confirms the measured channel, not that reviews caused the action or that the person was a new customer. Confirm new-customer status from the business’s own records, and treat the campaign’s causal effect as unproven unless stronger evidence supports it.
A public complaint creates two conversations at once. One is with the customer who had the problem. The other is with everyone else reading the review and your reply. That is why “take it offline” is not enough by itself. If the business immediately moves everything into a private conversation, future customers may see no…
Google allows Business Profile owners and managers to respond to reviews, and replies appear publicly from the business. Google does not prescribe a branch-versus-head-office approval workflow. A practical multi-location rule is to let trained local teams handle routine factual replies within an agreed boundary, while escalating replies that involve legal claims, privacy-sensitive details, safety issues, compensation promises, serious allegations, media attention or wording that could affect the whole brand.
Google allows businesses to ask customers for reviews, but reviews must reflect genuine experiences and merchants must not discourage negative reviews, selectively solicit positive reviews or offer incentives. Google does not publish a special rule requiring or authorising a review-request pause during an outage. A temporary pause in outbound requests can be a practical business decision while a real service failure is active, provided it applies consistently, does not block customers from reviewing, and is not used to filter out unhappy customers. Resume with the same neutral request rule once service is stable.
A reply that has not appeared is usually still in Google’s check: Google says replies usually take up to 10 minutes, but sometimes up to 30 days. If it was refused, Google asks you to edit it; if the review itself is gone, your reply went with it.
Nearly always one of three things: they are not signed in to a Google Account, the link you gave them does not open the listing you think it does, or there is no profile there to review. Each of the three shows itself in under a minute if you try it on a phone that is not yours.