It’s natural to want your positive reviews to stay posted so they keep providing value for your business. It’s just as natural to want to avoid the public sting that accompanies negative reviews. No matter your goal, you need to know how long Google reviews last when posted. Will it stay there forever? Will it disappear someday? In this guide, you’ll learn the answers.
Key Takeaways
- Have your Google reviews gone missing? You’ll learn whether they expire and what options you have when they do.
- There are many reasons a Google review may be removed. Learn about some of them, including review policy violations that may affect either positive or negative reviews.
- Learn more about your options when showing off reviews, hiding negative ones, and improving the scores visitors to your profile see.
Do Google Reviews Expire?
The upfront answer is that Google reviews do not have an expiration date, so any customer reviews you receive will remain posted online (unless you’re able to get them removed, more on this below).
No matter the age, for any Google Business Profile found in results, clicking “Google reviews” or “View all Google Reviews” pulls up that business’s reviews. These can be continuously scrolled, and you’ll find that some of them go back decades.
All Google reviews for a business can be viewed publicly, no matter how old. A business’s review listing on Google is automatically filtered by “Most relevant” (but you can change the sort order by relevancy, newest, or oldest).
Google has not stated how relevancy is determined, but studies have found that date, length, locality, product or service specifics, and keywords may be deciding factors, as opposed to review likes, business owner replies, or whether the review is positive or negative.
Overall, customer reviews are posted and visible to all customers. When viewed, Google reviews are filtered by the “most relevant,” but positive and negative feedback are not the only factors that determine relevance. Reviews technically last forever as long as there are no problems. In practice, however, they are purged all the time, and Google has many reasons for doing this.
Reasons a Google Review Might Be Removed
There are several reasons why a Google review might be removed or hidden from view. A Google team member clarified some of them in a recent support answer. He claims:
“There are many reasons why reviews may not show up or be removed. For example: user deletion, problems with the user’s account; problems with the business profile; problems with the content of the review; etc. Google does not disclose the reason(s) why a review may not be visible.”
The Google Maps User-Generated Content Policy covers what is allowed in reviews and what constitutes a content violation. Reviews can be removed for all of the following reasons:
It Looks Like Fake Engagement
Reviews may be removed for content violations if they do not scan as authentic experiences to Google’s filters or human quality raters. Google describes this as content that does not reflect the real experience, location, or product. The ban against fake engagement also includes a ban on merchants soliciting or encouraging content that does not represent a genuine experience.
As a merchant, you are also banned from prohibiting your customers from leaving reviews. Any content posted on a competitor’s page to undermine them is also considered a violation of the fake engagement policy. You cannot leave counterfeit reviews on any competitor’s page or ask others to do so.
There Is a Possibility of Impersonation
Google will remove any review that impersonates a person, group, or organization. This includes content posted or shared seeking to impersonate, and content pretending to be a verified source.
The Content Uses Obscenity and Profanity
Unfortunately, you cannot control what language your reviewers feel comfortable using. If your customer has used foul language, their 5-star reviews may remain permanently hidden or removed.
The upside of this rule is that profanity-laced attacks on your business will likely remain hidden forever. These rules forbid obscenity meant to emphasize criticism, meaning obscenity will be removed even if it doesn’t target a person.
The Content Features Adult Themes
In addition to obscenity, any review featuring adult themes can be removed from your business. Google bans reviews that include any reference to adult content, including suggestive poses or references to adult toys. There are some exceptions depending on the nature of your business. If your business involves adult products, relevant reviews can still be published.
Unclear and Repetitive Content
Quality guidelines apply to reviews in the same way they apply to website content. If the content of the review doesn’t make sense or doesn’t come to a point, or just repeats the same message, it will likely be caught and blocked by Google’s review filters.
Advertising and Solicitation
All reviews are meant to be honest experiences. Google prohibits reviewers from advertising and soliciting business in their review content. You can report any reviews that use their space to recommend your competitors.
The Content Reveals Personal Information
Neither a customer’s review nor your replies can contain personal information. Google will review and possibly remove any review that contains a full name, a last name, their face in a photograph or a video, or other identifying information
Anyone can make a report that a piece of review content includes personal information. Some reviews may be taken down temporarily for these reports, but then published again if the report turns out not to be accurate.
Merchants are allowed to post their own names and contact information. They can also use an individual’s name if they are a public-facing professional conducting business under their name (for example, doctor, lawyer, or realtor).
The Review References Legally-Restricted Content
Reviews may be removed for content violations if they contain information regulated in the jurisdiction where the review is posted. Reviews about your business, or your replies, may be hidden if they reference alcohol, gambling, tobacco, guns, health and medical devices, regulated pharmaceuticals, adult services, and financial services.
The Review Is Off-Topic
Google’s policy clarifies that reviewers can only post about their experience at a specific location. Reviewers who leave additional notes with general, political, or social commentary (or personal rants) may not have their reviews published.
The Review Is Intended for “Defacement and Mischief”
Google actively removes reviews that are intended to destroy or damage a company’s digital presence. For example, people who join social media crusades to flood businesses with bad reviews violate this policy.
In addition to all of these, a review may be removed because it contains any of the following other content:
- Inappropriate content and behavior
- Harassment
- Hate speech
- Offensive content
- Sexually explicit content
- Violence and gore
- Restricted content
- Dangerous content
- Child safety concerns
- Terrorist content
Google does its best to detect review violations automatically. It has comprehensive and improving filters for all of these issues. Now, you know some of the reasons that reviews get removed by Google. You may be interested in knowing what can happen when you attempt to remove reviews through various methods. Let’s start with what happens to reviews when you delete a Google Business Profile:
Does Deleting Google Business Profile Remove Reviews?
If your business has accumulated a handful of negative reviews, you may have considered deleting the whole profile to make a fresh start. If you’ve ever wondered what happens to reviews when profiles are deleted, the short answer is that they stay right where they are.
The issue is that you can’t really “delete” a business profile. The profile is tied to the business address or map location. You can surrender the profile and stop managing it, but this won’t remove any of the reviews about your business or even prevent new bad reviews.
If you do move forward with surrendering the profile, you will lose the ability to manage details like your contact information and store hours. Incorrect information, including information that inconveniences your customers,
All customer reviews on your Google Business Profile will remain posted and therefore still available for the public to see. Needless to say, deleting your Google Business Profile with the aim of removing negative reviews isn’t recommended.
Now you know you can’t remove any reviews by deleting your profile. You may feel completely out of options, but some legitimate ways to hide reviews exist.
How to Hide Negative Google Reviews
Taking action to contact Google may help you hide some negative reviews in rare cases where—
- The review contains content that violates guidelines.
- Google’s filters didn’t catch it before it was published.
While these cases are rare, they still happen. Sometimes, reviewers use careful language to say nasty things and don’t get caught by the filters. Armed with the information from the earlier section, you should have a pretty good idea of what content violates guidelines. Google provides a reporting form here that you can use to report inappropriate reviews.
Now, let’s talk about reviews that don’t violate Google’s guidelines. When it comes to these reviews, business owners cannot remove or hide genuine negative reviews. It’s possible to request a customer to delete their negative review, but you risk further damaging your reputation, especially if the customer considers it a bribe and decides to publicize it online.
In general, requesting a customer to delete (or possibly edit) their review is only recommended if you have successfully changed that customer’s mind. The only way to effectively “hide” negative reviews is to make them irrelevant. Fortunately, that may not take as long as you think. 85% of consumers consider local reviews irrelevant if they are older than three months.
Thanks to consumer behavior, negative reviews will become more irrelevant as they age. Therefore, you don’t have to stress too much about any bad reviews. Your business can also practically hide its negative reviews by getting more positive reviews.
How to Show Off Positive Google Reviews
If your business has earned an impressive number of positive Google reviews, you can rest assured that these reviews will stay posted for other customers to see. Still, it’s only natural to be proud of your positive reviews. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to showcase your best reviews wherever possible.
First, you should get permission from the person who left the review. While you aren’t required to seek permission for all public statements, it can be an effective way to avoid problems and arguments with your otherwise happy customers.
Remember that reviewers can always delete the reviews themselves if they feel you are being rude. When you do have permission, you should consider these ideas for showing off your business reviews:
- Embed Google reviews on your website: The best reviews should be located on your website, where visitors can use them as social proof of your quality. Make sure to link back to the reviews wherever they’re located so that your visitors will know they are genuine.
- Share reviews on social media: Many great reviews tell a story, making them great content for your social media sites. Choose the best ones and showcase them in posts complete with the real language.
- Display reviews at your place of business: Printing out and framing your best reviews can be a fun way to decorate your business. Even on paper, reviews can be influential. Place them in waiting rooms and other locations.
- Include reviews in marketing campaigns: Some reviews capture the idea of your business so well that they make good marketing materials on their own. Put these reviews in your ads where they can do the most good.
It’s also worth checking review site guidelines before sharing customer reviews on your website or social media page. Unfortunately, there is no way to pin positive reviews or change the order of reviews on Google. Reviews are automatically filtered by the “Most relevant”, but can also be filtered by “Newest”, “Highest”, and “Lowest”, as well as by the most common keywords mentioned in your reviews.
How To Improve Your Google Star Rating
If negative reviews are your concern, your star rating is most likely another concern as a result. Your star rating, displayed on your Google Business Profile and search engine results pages, is the collective (average) rating your business has received from customers’ review ratings.
This makes it important because it provides a snapshot of your business’s credibility and trustworthiness. The higher your star rating, the more likely customers are to consider and engage with your company.
However, if Google reviews don’t expire, and you can’t remove negative customer reviews that do not violate guidelines, how do you improve your Google star rating? The only real solution is to get more Google reviews. The more new reviews you can get for your small business, the better.
Earn More Google Reviews With ReputationStacker
Getting more online reviews is the key to your business’s success, regardless of whether you already have a majority of positive or negative reviews.
As you now know, customers aren’t just looking for positive reviews, but new and relevant reviews. This makes it vital that your business receives Google reviews on a consistent basis.
Not only will this increase review relevancy, but it will also effectively hide old negative reviews by making them irrelevant.
ReputationStacker gets your business more Google reviews, more Facebook reviews, and reviews on any other review site using a fully automated reputation management funnel that streamlines the review process for your customers.
You won’t have to worry about how long negative reviews stay posted or whether customers notice your new positive reviews. With ReputationStacker, your business will be receiving new, relevant positive reviews; the kind of reviews that customers want and need to see.
