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With over a decade of experience, Reputation Ace has a proven track record of success in helping clients improve their online reputation.
We use top-notch tools and strategies to monitor and manage your online presence, ensuring that you look your best online. Our team will work closely with you to understand your goals and develop a personalized plan that fits your needs.
At Reputation Ace, we believe that each client is unique. That’s why we offer personalized service and attention to detail. Our retainers start at £895 per month, and we offer complete confidentiality to our clients. You can trust us to handle your online reputation with care and expertise.
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Our clients have given us glowing reviews, and we’re proud to have helped them achieve their online reputation goals. Let us do the same for you! Contact us today at 0800 088 5506 or info@reputationace.com to learn more about our services and how we can help you look your best online.
How to Hide Negative Information About Yourself Online
Your online reputation is one of the most valuable assets you possess in the digital age. In a matter of seconds, a quick Google search can reveal your personal information, professional accomplishments, and any negative information that may be associated with your name. With the increasing amount of personal and professional information available online, it’s more important than ever to ensure that your online reputation is positive and accurate.
However, hiding negative information about yourself online is not as easy as it may seem. There are many pitfalls and challenges to navigate, and even the smallest mistake can have significant consequences. In this article, we’ll explore some of the most common challenges of reputation management and why a reputation management company may be your best bet for quickly improving your online reputation.
The Pitfalls of Reputation Management
Inaccurate Information: The first challenge of reputation management is dealing with inaccurate information about yourself. This could be anything from a misleading article, a false review, or an outdated profile. Once this information is online, it can be difficult to remove, and it can spread quickly, affecting your personal and professional reputation.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Another challenge of reputation management is the way search engines rank and display information. Search engines use complex algorithms to determine which results to display at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). Negative information about yourself can easily get ranked higher than positive information, making it even more difficult to hide.
Online Defamation: A common pitfall of reputation management is online defamation. This occurs when someone intentionally spreads false information about you with the intent to harm your reputation. Dealing with online defamation is difficult, as it requires legal action to remove the information.
Why a Reputation Management Company is Your Best Bet
A reputation management company can help you navigate these challenges and quickly improve your online reputation. With the expertise and experience in online reputation management, a reputable company can help you:
Remove inaccurate information: A reputation management company can help you remove inaccurate information from the web by using various techniques such as content removal, search engine optimization, and legal action.
Improve your search engine ranking: A reputation management company can use SEO strategies to improve the ranking of positive information about you on the SERPs. This can help push negative information further down the page, making it less visible to those who search for you online.
Monitor your online reputation: A reputation management company can continuously monitor your online reputation and alert you to any new negative information that may appear. This can help you quickly address any new threats to your reputation and maintain a positive online presence.
Reputation Ace can help repair your search results in Google
In today’s digital age, your online reputation is more important than ever. Hiding negative information about yourself online is a complex and challenging process, but a reputation management company can help you achieve quick and effective results.
If you’re looking to improve your online reputation, contact Reputation Ace, a leading reputation management company.
With a team of experts, they can help you protect and improve your online reputation.
Contact them at 0800 088 5506 or email info@reputationace.com and start protecting your online reputation today! #reputationManagementCompany
You may have an online presence if you have a small business.
At any point, you’re going to be in the ring of online troll fire. And if you’re devoted to authenticity, integrity, and honesty, and if you’re committed to promoting what you strive for in your online business and lifestyle, just one experience with trolls can be disastrous.
Respond to online trolls?
Conventional wisdom is that companies should reply to everyone on media platforms. If anyone takes the time to reach out to an organization, they deserve to be acknowledged. Although online trolls try to provoke a reaction, so should you get involved or not?
First, don’t immediately conclude that every derogatory comment is a troll. Be patient, an individual might have a valid concern that needs to be answered, even though it has been phrased in an unnecessarily offensive way. But if you know they’re really trolling, it’s time to take action.
Reply back with facts
If your trolls propagate misleading information or misrepresent, then it’s necessary to provide the details and facts.
The easiest way to do so is to provide a FAQ section or info on your site to which you can refer. This indicates that you have already discussed the topics in concern and that you are not responding to a specific position.
Yield positivity and create a culture of encouragement
The best way to tackle harsh feedback and ratings is to create a constructive and welcoming culture. When talking to trolls, concentrate less on influencing the opinion of the troll and much more on what kind of message it sends to those who read it.
The web should be a place for sharing and connecting
Internet and social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram offer fantastic opportunities to exchange information and connect with the world around you. It offers an efficient way for companies and brands to connect with customers and users.
Most companies will have to negotiate with internet bullies at some point. Designing a clear strategy on how to deal with online trolling for your organization can combat trolls and ensure that your staff knows how to adapt is a crucial first move.
In the last few years, the usage of social media platforms for interaction has increased widely. Many users post on sites like Google, Twitter, Facebook, and other sites that are usually 70 per cent of that posted content is malicious and even sometimes mean-spirited. It often intended to hurt the reputation and public image of others.
Though sharing something negative or related to criticism is not illegal or cannot lead to a lawsuit. But if it is directly targeted to defame someone’s image, it can end up with some serious legal rights.
What if someone has Posted Malicious Comments about you on Google?
That depends on the situation. First, you need to analyze the fact and reality of that fact presented about you either in verbal or written form. If you find that comment of review defamatory, in that case, you should immediately use your right to protect your reputation. Consult with legal lawyers to sue the lawsuit against the person who said or posted that content about you.
How to Find out that the Statement is Defamatory?
Bad Google reviews or Facebook comments, or defamatory tweets can make or break a business or an individual image within seconds. A single negative comment, review, remark, or statement given online is enough to drive a prospective buyer or customer away. With some comments being snarling malicious attacks, the question arises as to whether such a public declaration of negativity is defamation or not?
Defamation means saying or writing stuff about anyone that harms the reputation of that individual. Radio, television celebrities and big businesses or companies often face these kinds of comments or reviews as compared to common men. To be proved as defamatory, a claim must be portrayed as accurate but, in reality, inaccurate.
What to do?
If the content isn’t that severe and you can handle it without a lawsuit, here are some steps that you can follow (if it is worst and can harm you, follow the above-given step and immediately content with an attorney to solve the matter legally):
Reply to the review or comment positively:
The first measures that the business owner must undertake to delete a Google review are to react to the compliment. Tell the truth, and the consumer can opt to delete the Google review or comment on their own. At the very least, you will minimize the harm, as other future clients can see your side of the story and realize a bit about your user experience capabilities.
Flag that malicious review
If you feel that you have got a false, unsuitable rating or promotes a rival, you can flag it to be checked by Google for deletion. Just comments that breach Google’s guidelines will be deleted.
Follow these measures to flag a review:
Check into “My Business” in Google.
Choose the place (if you have numerous)
Pick “Reviews” from the panel.
Discover the review in question. Tap on the three-dot menu, then pick “Flag as inappropriate.”
It can take a few days for them at Google to evaluate your application and decide if they will remove Google reviews or not. If feasible, ask others to flag the review as well, as this could attract more attention to the scathing review and prompt Google to delete that review fastly.
Reach Google Small Business
Flagging the comment or review and/or responding to negative remarks often let that content being removed. o But if these methods fail, the next move is to report that review to Google Small Business Support. To
contact Google support, take the following steps:
Search support.google.com.
Scroll down and pick “email us.”
Pick “Customer Feedback and Videos,” and then “Manage customer reviews.”
Choose to get assistance via mobile, live chats, or email.
Using all of these approaches, you may expect assistance within 24hrs. If you want to approach Google via chat or email, it’s great to have a screenshot of that negative review in your email or chat question ready to go.
The next move:
If someone from the support team comes into touch with you, it’s up to you to justify why the review must be deleted. Be prepared to tell them that you consider that review is inaccurate or in violation of the guidelines and justify your request to delete it.
Most probably, by now, you may have a strong understanding of how to remove malicious comments from Google by taking the steps listed above. Delete a negative Google review now and get your business back on track.
Amazon product reviews… the lifeline that boosts sales into success celebrations or kicks listings all the way back into the bane of page 20. When sellers launch a product, reviews shorten the lag time between unknown and popular. Product reviews influence conversion rates so strongly that they are a sellers’ powerful tool of transformation from zero to quit-my-day-job income.
There are basic pro-active steps sellers take to make sustainable success possible:
A high-quality product that earns rave product reviews;
An outstanding product detail page that leaves no buyer doubts; and,
Customer service fit for royalty.
Knowing these elements are in your hands makes you an empowered seller. On the premise that you have mastered the above three, let’s move forward.
The Achilles heel of every seller is negative reviews and in a previous article about how to deal with them, I focussed on how to learn, grow and benefit from all types of reviews, even the negative ones. Amazon will not remove negative product reviews just because it makes you unhappy. But what if you have some negative product reviews that don’t seem like fair play? It’s time to investigate if a bad product review is TOS compliant and actually warrants their presence.
Knowing The Difference Makes A Difference
It may seem like a tedious task, however, you could discover an Amazon-approved reason for requesting product review removal in these two areas: Customer Feedback ratings (aka Seller Feedback) versus Product Reviews.
Some buyers write Customer Feedback content as a bad Product Review and visa versa. That is actually grounds for removal submission in both cases.
Acceptable Customer Feedback
Customer Feedback covers the issues of delivery, packaging, the condition of the product or container (opened, leaked, cracked, broken, etc.) and customer service (rating their experience with the merchant). These ratings directly impact your overall account health.
FBA sellers can get negative customer feedback comments about low ratings for delayed, damaged goods or return issues removed since Amazon handles all of this on your behalf.
Whether you are an FBA or FBM Seller, if a low customer feedback rating is only about the product; you have an absolutely valid reason to request removal since that content doesn’t belong there.
Check out this real-time example:
product review
I contacted Seller Central Support to notify them of the above issue on behalf of a fellow seller.
seller support
Because these were product reviews written as Customer Feedback, that was an Amazon acceptable reason to request removal. Amazon responded at 7:55 a.m. (yes, that’s 3 minutes later):
07:55 AM
Greetings from Amazon Seller Support,
Thank you for contacting us. I am happy to help you with the issue related to removal of the feedback.
I have checked all the details and found that the feedback is related to a product review that was provided by the buyer and it had nothing to do with your performance or your services. As per your request,I have removed the buyer’s feedback.
And voilà! By the way, this seller had a “Fair” Account Health rating. After two low ratings were removed; it returned to a 5-star “Good” status once again.
Moving On To Product Reviews
As a general rule of thumb, Amazon doesn’t make a habit of removing product reviews. However, reviews containing Customer Feedback details and nothing about the product itself are possible removal candidates. Amazon lists these criteria as well:
Inappropriate Content
Hate Speech & Offensive Content
One-word-reviews
Promotion of Illegal Conduct
Promotional Reviews
Amazon would also consider removing at least one review when “a buyer, unhappy with their purchase, posts multiple negative reviews for the same product.” Some people do this through multiple accounts. Why they would go out of their way to post more than once, is beyond me.
Grounds for Product Review Removal
Here is an example of a product review worthy of removal consideration… notice how this person just wanted to rant. If anything, this falls into the Customer Feedback ratings, and as you can see, the review has nothing to do with the product itself.
Remove product review
Take a look at this one. In this case, no one can tell if the reviewer even took the product out of the box it came in.
1 star review
Customer Opinions
Product reviews are opinions. And Amazon likes every customer to have one. To be clear, just because a review is negative but it’s about the customer’s experience with the product – Amazon won’t even consider removing it. That type of review is legit.
Assuming you have an Amazon approved reason, no one knows if Amazon will actually accept it nor how long it could take for them to respond. I understand that Seller Central transfers such cases: “The team that owns this feature is outside of Seller Support and does not use the case system. So your case will appear closed in Seller Central… results of investigations are not shared.”
Remember, the only guaranteed outcome is that nothing will happen if you don’t try.
The How-Tos
There are two ways to go about submitting non-compliant negative product review removal requests: Report abuse and/or contact Seller Support. I will include both ways. I don’t believe this is an either/or option, so I recommend using both.
Report Abuse
Next to the “Was this review helpful to you? Yes – No, click on “Report abuse”.
report abuse
This window will show up:
Inappropiate product review
Write clear, authorized reason(s) why the content is inappropriate (just stick to Amazon’s guidelines). Then submit by clicking on the orange Report as inappropriate button.
Contact Seller Support
This option allows for much more information to build your removal case.
Before you go wild reporting every 1-star review, remember that Amazon may, or may not delete the ones with real content violations so don’t waste everyone’s time trying to get legitimate negative ones removed.
Amazon
Can Negative Product Reviews Be Changed?
For some sellers, 3-stars or less is a source of frustration. Others recognize that multiple 2 or 3-star valid testimonials are perceived as more authentic feedback. Consumers find a mixture helpful. That’s why they read both.
Consider that having a few negative reviews isn’t going to be your demise. Let’s say that you have compliant negative product reviews that Amazon would easily refuse to remove; you could try reaching out to the customer. Just do so wisely. At no point can you ever state or imply that if a customer improves their product review, you will give them a gift, discount on their next order, refund or anything other than a genuine “Thank you.”
Sometimes a reviewer simply doesn’t understand how to properly use a product (even with included carefully crafted instructions). Generally, prospective buyers discern that it’s a limitation of the reviewer versus the product itself. As the seller, taking time to respond in a professional, friendly (non-defensive) way on the detail page for everyone to see, counterbalances those negative reviews and builds confidence in your name/brand. In many cases, answering questions leads to a customer changing their review of their own inspired volition.
While it may be tempting to take your customer interaction offline: Don’t. It works in your favour to keep Amazon in the proverbial loop. When Amazon sees that a seller is responding to product issues, they smile upon it. Prevent getting busted for misunderstood resolutions attempted off of Amazon’s platform. Even the best intentions may come back with haunting repercussions if a buyer ends up writing about how you contacted them by phone or directly via a personal email, then offered x, y, z to get their negative feedback removed. If reading that makes your palms sweat because the thought had crossed your mind; take it as a think twice sign.
Instead, take confident steps via Amazon and remember to leave a trail so that they know your efforts are genuine.
Reducing Recovery Time
One way to make up for drops in conversion rates resulting from multiple compliant negative reviews is to actually acquire more reviews. This is easily accomplished by running promotions or sponsored product ads or review campaigns.
Proactively Prevent Negative Reviews on Amazon
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First Thing’s First—Don’t Panic
A bad review, especially one that is particularly cruel, can be hard to read. When you get a bad review, try these steps first. We’ll go through each one in more detail later in the post.
Don’t panic, and don’t react immediately. Read the review, take a breath, and leave it alone for a bit. Maybe go into another room, or do something else for a while.
Once you’re clear-headed, determine if the review is real or fake. Do you recognize the poster? If you don’t, it might be a fake review.
Respond. If the review is fake, flag it, and state why you think it is fake. If it is real, try to solve the problem, or provide another calm, reasonable response.
Change the customer’s mind. If the review was real and the reviewer reasonable, try to fix the problem and change their mind. Then, ask them to edit their review. With a bit of luck, you’ve removed your bad Google review.
How to Remove Google Reviews—The Details
It’s important to understand what Google reviews are and why they exist. The reviews submitted to Google, which appear in a search along with your location, hours, and other information, are attached your Google Business profile. You can claim your profile and make a Google Business account for free at any time, but this profile and the attached reviews will exist either way.
Google Business reviews are primarily for customers using the Google search engine. Just like the search engine itself, the goal of the reviews is to provide information and help customers make decisions.
Google reviews are supposed to be honest accounts of an experience by a real customer. However, this is not always the case. Competitors, spammers, former employees or other disgruntled people may write a bad review when they never even used your products or services. Since these reviews are false, you have options you wouldn’t have for true reviews. For this reason, we’ll divide this post into tips to remove true and false Google reviews.
Business Owner’s Guide to Google Reviews
Minimize the effect of negative reviews by building a raving collection of Google reviews. Get your direct link for sending requests with our Google Review Link Generator, and download the Business Owner’s Guide to Google Reviews for review request templates and more.
Tips to Remove a Real Google Review
What is a real Google review? It’s pretty simple; a real Google review is a truthful review of your business from a real customer.
First thing’s first; you can’t remove a review simply because it’s bad. If that were the case, every review would be positive and reading Google reviews would be pretty pointless. However, there’s still hope for removing bad Google reviews, even if they’re true.
1. Ask the Customer to Edit Their Review
Google reviews are not permanent. The original reviewer can delete or change their review, but you’ll have to change their mind first.
First, determine whether or not this is a reasonable person who actually could change their mind. If the reviewer left a long list of emotionally-charged complaints, or it’s clear that the product or service simply isn’t for them (for example, a quiet person at a noisy bar or a meat-lover at a vegan restaurant), they probably won’t change their mind. Respond to their review respectfully, but remember that there are a few positive effects of negative reviews.
Perhaps the customer left a bad review because something just went wrong—the service was slow, the chef was having an off day, or a defective product somehow fell into the customer’s hands. These are reviews that are most likely to be fixed. Try the following strategy:
Respond to the review. Thank them for taking the time to write, and apologize for the mistake. Inform them the situation has been rectified, and you’d like a chance to make it up to them. Give them your contact information or ask them to visit again for a special offer.
If they contact you or visit, make sure you deliver what you promised. Be friendly, and thank them for visiting or using your service again.
Finally, follow up and ask them if they would change their review. Emphasize the importance of reviews, and give them instructions on how they can change it.
A customer can edit their review pretty easily. Follow these steps.
Go to Google Maps. You can search any location to get there.
In the upper left-hand corner, click the menu icon (three horizontal lines).
Click “Your contributions.” Click “Reviews”
Find the review in question, and click the three vertical dots near the business name.
Click “Edit review” and rewrite or change the review.
remove google review
2. Push the Review Down
Most people read less than 6 reviews of a business. This means, though you may not be able to actually remove the review from your listing, you can essentially remove the Google review from sight by adding other positive reviews. If you get six more positive reviews, most people won’t see the bad one. If you get 10, you’ve effectively removed the Google review for 90% of customers.
How do you get more Google reviews? It won’t happen overnight, but you can make a focused effort to add more reviews over a short time frame. Start a testimonial collection promotion to rally your customers and get more reviews. Use Boast to get more Google Business Reviews and save time by automating this process. Try some of the following methods to gather reviews fast;
Set up a review collection kiosk in the store.
Periodically ask customers in the store to leave a review.
Put a review request at the bottom of receipts
Start a review collection campaign or contest
Ask customers for a review at the end of a meeting, or when your business together has concluded.
Include review requests with packages.
Start a review request email campaign.
Contact previous customers where possible to ask reviews.
Include a review request at a check-out line or waiting room
Include a review request with a follow-up email
Business Owner’s Guide to Google Reviews
Minimize the effect of negative reviews by building a raving collection of Google reviews. Get your direct link for sending requests with our Google Review Link Generator, and download the Business Owner’s Guide to Google Reviews for review request templates and more.
3. Rebrand
Big companies that have had serious PR debacles know the value in rebranding. WorldCom, the biggest accounting fraudster in U.S. history, became MCI Inc (later Verizon Communications). Marlboro maker Phillip Morris rebranded to Altria to distance themselves from deathly cigarettes. Hundreds of other major and minor companies have rebranded in similar ways. If you have a lot of bad reviews and you don’t see a way to repair your reputation, this is an option to consider. However, it will take your existing business literally off the map, so this should only be a last resort.
how to remove google review
A rebrand means physically and digitally changing your business. This means changing your business name, logo and website, at the very least. With this complete, you’ll need to close your Google Business account and inform Google that the previous business has closed. You’ll see this option in your Google Business account, if you have one, and you can also use the “Feedback” option at the bottom of your search results card. This will bring up a message box to “mark as closed, non-existent, or duplicate.” It will take some time for Google to verify this, but the listing will eventually disappear from search results.
Then you’ll need to register a new Google Business account, inputting your new business name, phone number, website, address (where possible) and other information. This means starting from a clean slate, so gathering good reviews right from the start will be important.
Remember that this is a strategy to completely change your business and start with a clean reputation. This is not a way to simply trick Google, trick customers and keep the rest of your business the same. “Closing” your business in order to get rid of bad reviews and then reopening it again under the same won’t work, and you may be banned from Google completely for violating their terms of service.
A full-scale rebrand is a big undertaking. Consider this option carefully and consider repairing your business reputation first.
Tips to Remove a Fake Google Review
What is a fake Google Business review? Also pretty simple. It’s a review that is not truthful and/or not written by a real customer.
It is possible to remove these Google reviews, though proving they are fake can be difficult. All of the previous strategies may work with a fake review as well, though getting a fraudulent poster to change their review is unlikely.
4. Flag and Respond
If the reviewer doesn’t look or sound familiar, they may be fake. Check your records if you can, and see if you have done business with this person. Also, check the reviewer’s other reviews. Fake reviews tend to be non-specific, while real reviews will include details about that person’s experience.
tips to remove google review – flag and report
If you’re fairly certain the review is fake, first flag it as spam and report it. This signals Google staff to look it over and remove it if it is obviously fake. It will also show the message, “This review has been flagged and reported to Google.” This signals to other prospective customers not to take the review seriously.
Respond to the review and state that you do not recognize the reviewer as a customer. If they made false statements, refute them calmly. Though it is frustrating to be defamed this way, try to avoid emotional statements. Stick to the facts.
When you report the fraudulent review, Google will check it and may remove it. However, there are millions of Google Business listings all over the world. Unless the review is clearly abusive or inappropriate, it’s unlikely to be removed. Try flagging the post multiple times, appealing to customer service reps on Twitter @GoogleSmallBiz, or taking your case to the Google Community. You’ll need proof that the reviewer wasn’t a customer, could not have made the review, or is being paid to review, which could be tough.
5. Legal Action
In some cases, you may know the reviewer making false statements. They may be an angry ex-employee, a competitor, or someone who personally dislikes you. In this case, you may want to take legal action.
First, respond and flag the review. Then, if you are certain you know the reviewer and can send them a message, do so. Ask them, politely but firmly, to remove the false review.
If you believe the review is significantly hurting your business, you may want to take legal action. Writing false statements about a person or business can qualify as libel or injurious falsehood (AKA trade libel), and may be grounds for a civil suit. To do this, you’ll need to be able to prove the statements are false and prove who wrote them. However, a cease and desist notice from a reputable attorney may be enough to persuade the reviewer to delete the review, and a full legal case won’t be necessary.
Business Owner’s Guide to Google Reviews
Minimize the effect of negative reviews by building a raving collection of Google reviews. Get your direct link for sending requests with our Google Review Link Generator, and download the Business Owner’s Guide to Google Reviews for review request templates and more.
Your business reputation is a valuable thing. Though it may seem obvious, the best way to protect it is to run a reputable business. It’s also a good idea to regularly ask customers with positive experiences to write reviews. This way, if you have to displace or remove a Google review, customers will still know who to trust.
2
Get everything you need to collect online reviews and leverage them to grow your business.
Check Out the Business Owner’s Guide to Online Reviews
how to remove a bad review from google my business
bad reviews on google
Page navigationWe are different to other online reputation management companies because we get negative online reviews deleted, not just pushed down in Google or ‘displaced’. It is impossible to ‘displace’ a page for every given search term and so permanent removal is the best option. We are an established business with over five years expertise in repairing negative reputations of companies, brands and individuals alike.
Unlike our competitors we handle each page individually, so there is no need to tie you in to a contract. We only charge a one-off fee for pages we can remove. Our website is Paypal integrated, allowing us to instantly refund you if the page is not completely deleted within 2 weeks. We have a no quibbles guarantee. When you place an order with Yahoo Reputation, you gain access to our unique Removal Management Suite. This will allow you to easily manage your orders. As soon as the Yahoo Answer page is deleted it will be shown on your dashboard. Here is an example of a removed Yahoo page.
We have removed negative content on many websites over the years, but specialize in removing content on Yahoo Answers, Yelp, Yell.com and Google Suggest. Below is our contact form which you can use to contact us about removing any bad reviews you may have. We remove reviews about you personally, as well as negative business reviews. Click here to read real Pure Reputation reviews. If you want to be forgotten under the right to be forgotten act, we can ensure that happens as quickly as possible. Contact us today.
At Pure Reputation Agency, we can help vendors and sellers and online market places to remove bad reviews from their customers. This improve the star rating and increase the appeal for future client. Find out more about removing vendor reviews from here.
Google reviews can make or break your business. Sadly, there are people who do leave negative or even downright mean Google reviews. But what, if anything, can you do about it?
Here we walk you through how to delete a Google review—or at least how to try. Google reviews are the internet’s “word-of-mouth,” influencing potential customers before they even visit your website or walk in your store.
Ultimately, having both good and bad reviews on Google isn’t the end of the world. In fact, having a couple negative reviews mixed in with mostly positive reviews is a good thing—it shows that you are a real business and that you didn’t just beg your friends to say nice things about you.
However, in the case of a truly nasty or possibly fake review, it’s worth it to do what you can to delete the Google review.
How to Delete a Google Review of Your Business that is Bad
Unfortunately, there isn’t a button that reads “delete Google review.” However, if you are the owner of the business that has received a bad review, there are different ways you can go about getting the review removed.
Respond to the Review
One of the first steps the business owner should take for how to delete a Google review is to respond to the reviewer who left the review. Say the right thing, and the customer might choose to remove the Google review on their own. At the very least, you can mitigate the damage as other potential customers will get to see your side of the story and learn a bit about your customer relations skills.
Here are 3 vital tips to keep in mind when responding to a negative review:
Respond kindly and be nice
Do not get defensive, and don’t make it personal
Keep the response brief and to the point
These three tips could be the key and make the difference between the reviewer retracting the bad review or letting it stand. Ask the person to contact your company so that you can investigate the issue that caused them to leave a bad review in the first place. If they do follow up, do everything you can to help them have a positive experience.
You May Also Like:
How to get Google Reviews
How to Respond to a Google Review
Not sure how to log in so you to respond to the review? Google makes it pretty simple. Follow these steps:
First, make sure you’ve claimed your business listing—that is, registered yourself on Google as the owner. This will give you access to the listing on Google’s search results so you can edit information such as the website or hours—and respond to reviews. Claim your business by visiting Google.com/business and entering details about your business.
Sign into Google My Business (you’ll set this account up in step 1 if you haven’t already) and select the location (if you have multiples) with the review you’d like to respond to.
In the menu, select “Reviews.” Then click “Respond” next to the review you would like to address.
Type your response and click “Submit.”
Flag the Review
If you believe you have received a review that is fake, inappropriate, or promotes a competitor you can flag it to be reviewed by Google for removal. Only reviews that violate Google policy will be removed.
Follow these steps to flag a review:
Log into Google My Business.
Select the location (if you have multiple)
In the menu, select “Reviews”
Find the review in question. Click the three-dot menu , then select “Flag as inappropriate.”
It can take several days for someone at Google to review your request and determine whether they will delete your Google review. If possible, ask other people to flag the review also, as this might draw more attention to an offensive review and encourage Google to remove the Google review.
Report to Google Small Business Support
Flagging the review and/or responding to the unfair comments sometimes gets the review removed. But if those strategies fail, the next step is to report the review to Google Small Business Support.
To contact Google’s support for businesses, follow these steps:
Go to support.google.com/business
On the top right of your browser, select “contact us”
Select “customer reviews and photos,” and then “manage customer reviews”
Choose to receive help via phone, web chat, or email
Using any of these methods, you can expect help within 24 hours. If you choose to contact Google via email or chat, it is helpful to have a screenshot of the review in question ready to go.
You can also send a tweet to the Google My Business team (@GoogleMyBiz) from your company Twitter account. Someone may reply to you and you can take things from there. You could also search for and seek advice about the removal of reviews in the Google community support forum.
The Next Step
When someone from the support team gets in contact with you, it is up to you to explain why the review should be removed. Be ready to tell them why you think the review is false or in violation of policy and to defend your request to get it removed.
In some cases, the member of the support team may tell you that they will escalate the review to a specialist, who will make a decision about the outcome. You will again have to wait for an email confirmation or phone call from the member of the support team who helped you. Hopefully, they will be contacting you with good news.
How to Remove a Review You Left on Google
Have you ever left a bad review for a business and then had second thoughts? If you realize your review might have been unfair, you might be asking yourself if you can delete a Google review you wrote. So how do you go about it?
You probably left the review using Google Maps. If so head back to Maps then follow the steps below:
In the left-hand corner and you will see the icon for the menu, with three lines. Click this.
Head to “Your Contributions” and then pick “Reviews.”
Find the review that you want to delete in the list under Reviews.
Click on the “More” icon (the three dots, one above the other).
You can then choose to either edit the review that you left or delete the review.
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How to Leave a Google Review
Is It Possible To Remove a Google Review?
In short, yes. There are steps you can take if you feel that your company has been wronged with a review or a review has been faked. Google reviews and complaints can be the death of any business but are more detrimental to small or new businesses. The good news is that you can dispute a Google review. However, it is not an easy process and it can be frustrating.
Unfortunately, it is not as simple as going to your own account on Google and removing the review yourself. You can contact Google with the hope that they will remove the review, but there is no guarantee that Google will listen to what you have to say and remove the review for you. However, it’s probably still worth a try.
Hopefully, by now you will have a solid understanding of how to delete a Google review by following the steps outlined above. Remove a Google review that is bad and get your business back on track.
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Why do I need to worry about negative reviews?
Bad reviews directly affect your business’ bottom line by driving away customers. According to a ReviewTrackers survey, 94 percent of consumers report that an online review persuaded them to avoid a particular business. This number is worrisome because a company’s online profile is now one of the main ways that people learn about it. In 2017, 93 percent of consumers checked online reviews when deciding whether or not to do business with a local firm.
Online reviews also carry a lot of weight with consumers. Research from BrightLocal reveals that 85 percent of people value reviewers’ opinions as much as they would a friend or family member’s personal recommendation. Moreover, 40 percent of individuals would avoid a business because of a negative review.
Besides turning away potential customers, bad online reviews can hurt your company’s SEO. In a recent survey conducted by Moz, online reviews accounted for up to up 10 percent of local search engine ranking decisions. Thus, having a number of poor reviews can cause your company’s website to appear farther down the page in a Google search.
What are my options for dealing with bad reviews?
Before you can begin to address your negative reviews, you’ll need to identify which ones are the most problematic. To accomplish this, you can do a number of Google searches for your company name and see what negative content comes up. When deciding which reviews to tackle first, you’ll want to take into account how high they rank in your search results. The higher on the page they appear, the more likely it is that a potential customer will read them. You should also look up your company on the most popular online business review sites, such as Angie’s List, Insider Pages, and Google My Business.
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Read all of your reviews carefully, searching for common complaints that you need to address or issues that you’ve already fixed. Is a single unhappy customer responsible for posting most of the negative comments? Are any of the reviews obviously fake?
Once you’ve identified which negative reviews to target, you can decide how you want to manage them. You have several options: You can fix your business to solve the problem and avoid getting any more bad reviews, you can try to get the site to delete them, you can respond to them in hopes of resolving the reviewer’s complaint and getting them to revise their review, or you can publish so many positive reviews that you essentially drown out the negative voices. The best results, though, usually come from combining all four strategies.
how to handle negative reviews
1. Repair your business
The first step is to see what you can do to address those common complaints. While you should only give so much weight to rude and abusive reviews, if the same problem keeps coming up, it’s likely affecting far more customers than just those willing to complain on the Internet. Find and address those problems before you do anything else; listening to your critics and acting accordingly is your most effective tool for preventing bad reviews on the Internet.
2. Erase negative reviews
It seems like such a simple solution: Just ask the website to delete the review! Sadly, eliminating bad reviews is never this easy. The problem is that, according to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, websites aren’t liable for what their users post.
Whatever you do, don’t hire anybody who promises to remove content from review sites for you. Companies that promise to do this are most likely trying to scam you. Most people find that after they pay for bad reviews to disappear, the content keeps coming back, which means they end up having to repeatedly pay to keep it at bay.
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Review sites generally have a set of very strict guidelines (usually listed in their Terms of Service) for removing content. Often, the review has to be personally threatening or profane for a site to agree to remove it. Likewise, if you can demonstrate that the individual who wrote the content is actually a business competitor, someone you are battling in a lawsuit, or a fake reviewer, then the site will probably delete the content.
Remember, though, that the process for deciding to remove negative reviews is entirely subjective, and the final decision rests with the website. Therefore, there is no guarantee that the website in question will agree with you about the inappropriateness of the content. Reviews that sound calm and reasonable are extremely difficult to remove, regardless of how wildly inaccurate they may be.
You will have to adjust your tactics, as well as your expectations, for each site you are trying to remove content from. The following are some strategies for a handful of specific popular review sites:
Angie’s List
Angie’s List won’t remove any review unless it meets the following three conditions:
The member who posted it asks to have it removed.
The issue the review describes is resolved as part of a Complaint Resolution.
Angie’s List verifies that the review was fraudulently posted.
Thus, your best bet is to contact the unhappy reviewer and work with him or her to resolve the issue.
A surprising number of Angie’s List users will voluntarily remove their negative reviews if a business owner goes out of his or her way to correct the problem that led to the bad review. In fact, this is the number-one way to remove bad online reviews from Angie’s List. Additionally, making the reviewer happy might win you back a customer who otherwise would have been lost for good.
Insider Pages
To remove a bad review on your company’s Insider Pages site, you’ll need to make sure that you’ve claimed the listing. If you haven’t yet created an account, you’ll need to do that first and then search the site for your company name. When you arrive at your company’s page, just click the “Claim Business” link.
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Once you’ve verified your account information, you can report a bad review as “abuse.” Simply go to the review in question and click the “Report Abuse” button. Insider Pages employees will then look at the content to see if it violates the company’s Terms of Service. If it does, then Insider Pages will delete the review. If not, then the review will remain. There is little you can do to dispute the site’s decision. This is why it’s vital that you look into other ways to address the negative review.
Insider Pages offers business owners a way to respond to reviews, and doing so is a great way to not only resolve the disgruntled customer’s issue, but also show potential customers that you are a professional who cares about your customers’ satisfaction. To post a response, just click “View/Update Business Profile” and then click “Respond to Reviews” at the bottom of the page. When you are done with your response, click “Update Response.” Bear in mind though that the site doesn’t let you respond to reviews from Citysearch users.
Google My Business
Google My Business reviews are notoriously difficult to remove. However, the site does offer a way to flag reviews to bring them to the attention of Google employees. If the review violates the site’s policies regarding Prohibited and Restricted Content, then Google will delete it. Simply select “Reviews” from the My Google Business menu, find the review you want to flag, and click the three vertical dots menu. Finally, click “Flag as inappropriate.” This last item will be “Flag review” if you are using the mobile app.
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Regardless of whether you end up flagging a bad review, the best approach for dealing with negative Google My Business reviews is to quickly and calmly respond to them. To do so, you must first verify that the business is yours.
3. Respond to negative reviews
Your next tool is to simply respond to reviews. Especially for sites that refuse to delete bad online reviews, replying to a review can be a powerful tool because it turns a one-sided view of your business into one where a potential customer can see both sides of the problem.
When it comes to replying, there’s a set of rules you need to stick to for the best effect:
Use common courtesy. Being polite forces the critic to also be polite; especially if there’s a rude review, it will force a contrast between the raging critic and the polite business owner.
If you are at fault, apologize and see what you can do to resolve the situation. Often, demonstrating that you’ve heard their complaints and that you care can do a lot to excise a bad review.
If there’s another side to the story, lay it out clearly and concisely without blaming the critic. Making the critic aware of information he or she may not know (or pointing out information they’ve purposely left out) helps mitigate a bad review.
Never make legal threats or “out” the critic under their real name; doing so can get your response removed, and legal threats are empty anyway.
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4. Bury negative reviews
Another highly effective tactic for dealing with negative reviews is to simply force a contrast between a handful of bad reviews and a flood of good ones. Encourage your customers to review you on websites by including links on your website, in your social media presence, and in your email signatures. Post signs asking those with a positive experience to review you online and those with a bad one to come see you personally to talk about it. The flood of positive reviews will often be a powerful counter to even the most vitriolic critic.
In addition to generating positive reviews, it’s a good idea to create other content that will rank higher than your negative reviews in a Google search results page. This content can include social media posts, articles, or listings on business websites.
How do I keep negative reviews from affecting my business again?
Don’t assume that you can ignore your company’s online reputation after you have successfully addressed your bad reviews. You will need to continually monitor your search results to stay on top of any negative content.
If you need help dealing with negative reviews, contact ReputationDefender for a free consultation. We’ll help you build up a positive presence online to counteract even the worst review. In the end, you should be the one in charge of defining your company’s reputation, not strangers on the Internet.
Reputation Ace provides reputation management services for businesses and individuals globally.
We specialise in hiding and removing negative search results in Google search. We can permanently delete, remove, replace and suppress all kinds of negative content.
Call us now for a FREE QUOTE on repairing your online reputation on 0800 088 5506
