Google Reviews
-
We operate a printing company, and at the moment we have two locations in Houston, Texas. Our newest location just opened and so it has no reviews and no real content on Google +. A very satisfied customer seems to have posted two back to back reviews on the second location and it now seems that location no longer pulls up. It used to be that when you googled our business name that both locations pulled up it seems to pull just first more well established location. The second location can still be found but for whatever reason it no longer shows up with our other results. Should we tell the client to remove one of the reviews? I hope we don't get penalized for this
Appreciate your feedback.
C
-
Hi Carlos,
Good thread! You're dealing with 2 separate issues, as I see it.
Issue 1 - Your customer shouldn't be leaving you back-to-back reviews on any platform. If you know this customer and can ask him to remove one of his reviews, that would be wise.
Issue 2 - The fact that both locations are no longer showing in the local pack for your search term may have nothing to do with your customer's odd review activity. Rather, it may have to do with competition. Unless you have few competitors, it's not terribly common to have more than 1 location show in the same pack for a product or service search. So, just looking for 'printing houston', Google may choose to only show your business once, regardless of you having 2 locations. Branded searches are different. If I look up 'Whole Foods Houston', Google is likely to show me multiple Whole Foods locations all in the same pack. So, you may simply be dealing with the presence of competition in your city, in which case, thinking about this from a hyperlocal standpoint may be your best bet.
For more on this, see: http://moz.com/blog/mastering-serving-the-user-as-centroid
That being said, it's always wise to keep an eye on your reviews and if a customer has somehow gotten the wrong idea about helping you by posting multiple reviews, outreach to them would be very smart. It wouldn't be good if Google wrongly decided this was some sort of spammy campaign on the part of your business.
You can also petition Google now to have a review removed: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2015/04/03/new-google-support-option-offers-a-form-to-contest-reviews/
Hope this helps!
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Reviews for Plastic Surgeons and Other Businesses where Anonymity is preferred
Howdy, fellow mozzers. I would like to hear some thoughts on how to go about review generation for industries, where anonymity is preferred - like plastic surgery, DUI/DWI law, even intimate-related stores etc. Far not everyone would want to have their profile attached to a plastic surgery procedure, especially in private areas; or have their face by a review about them getting out of jail for drunk driving etc. We have clients in those industries and many clients of theirs would love to leave reviews, as long as they don't have to login with Google or other accounts. We sure use those testimonials on the website, but, again, faceless testimonials can look fake. Any advice?
Reviews and Ratings | | DmitriiK1 -
Business name change - Impact on reviews?
Hi I have a client who has created multiple GMB listings for his business using the same address, post code and phone number and I am trying to sort it all out. 2 of the listings have 1 review and 1 of them has 13 reviews. Obviously i want to keep the listing that has 13 reviews and delete the other 2. Keeping the listing with 13 reviews means I will have to update the business name in Google my business because it was originally entered wrongly. Will the profile need to be verified again? Will my client be able to keep those reviews or will they be deleted? Thanks
Reviews and Ratings | | coolhandluc1 -
Paying for Reviews Penalty?
Hello, recently came across a company that has been paying people directly for reviews. I of course do not recommend this and realized the ethical implications and even the lawsuits that can come from this, but does Google have a manual penalty for fake reviews or do they just algorithmically discount ones that raise red flags? I have never really had to worry about this in the past. I know you can flag fake reviews to them on an individual basis, but does anyone have history of knowing specific situations where a company was manually punished for doing this? Just curious and I kind of wanted to give them strong documentation to knock it off. Thanks in advance.
Reviews and Ratings | | jeremyskillings0 -
Paid review service stars in search ads - why is that allowed?
I'm looking at paid review services like Trustpilot, FeeFo and others. I'm told I can filter out bad reviews, which I can't do with my Google Certified Stores reviews. I'm struggling to understand why Google include these in the reviews it uses for the star ratings in search ads. I know it's a different thing, but surely these reviews are in breach of the rules that Google apply to their own "My Business" reviews? They talk about "Conflict of interest: Reviews are most valuable when they are honest and unbiased" here: https://support.google.com/business/answer/2622994?hl=en Does anyone have a take on whether Google will drop these as the momentum builds in collection of their own reviews? Thanks, Paul
Reviews and Ratings | | PaulS710 -
Google Review Guidelines update.
OK Moz peeps... Right then, I have just been reading an article over on SEO RoundTable from Barry Schwartz. NEW Local review guidelines for businesses - take a look. It in effect alludes to Google stamping all over review schema and snippets, third party review solutions/providers and really trying to limit how they are used. I have interpreted the new guidelines to say that you can no longer mark up and use external stats on your own site in the form of aggregate ratings from the likes of TrustPilot, Feefo, Revoo (some uk review sites) and more.... These were the two key lines for more Only include reviews that have been directly produced by your site, not reviews from third-party sites or syndicated reviews. Aggregators or content providers must have no commercial agreements paid or otherwise with businesses to provide reviews. What does everyone else think? and how soon before people get penalised (if ever) for marking up external stats to make your own site and services look more favourable... Could definately be a slap in the face for Serp CTR and onpage conversion optimisation. Also how do people expect this to affect PPC review rating going forward. Will Partner sites become a thing of the past? Looking forward to a good discussion here 🙂 PS - I am not staff at Moz just have a t-shirt which is my avatar. I am not sure why below my avatar it suggests I am Staff due to the tag added to it. Is anyone else getting that on their profile too?
Reviews and Ratings | | TimHolmes0 -
Google Reviews Hassle Reduced - Will It Affect Your Strategy?
Hey Local Pals 🙂 As you may have read this past week, Google has FINALLY stopped requiring users to have a G+ account in order to leave reviews. I find this such a breath of fresh air, given what a hassle it was for many customers who simply didn't ever get into the whole Google+ thing to leave reviews on this major player. I believe this can be seen as one of the last stages of the plus/local separation that has been ongoing for many, many months. Given this change, I thought it would be a good time to discuss reviews. My main question is, now that the only thing your customers need to leave a review is some type of Google account, will you be ramping up your Google-specific review outreach? And, in your own experience, do you feel that Google, Yelp or a different review source has the most impact on your business? Would that be ranking impact, leads, conversions, something else? Best practice is to be diverse, of course, but if you could earn good reviews in just one place, which would it be, and why? And, if you have any unusual tips for review outreach, I know the community would love to benefit from them. Thanks for joining the discussion!
Reviews and Ratings | | MiriamEllis1 -
Google Places/Affiliate/Partner Site
Hello, We are looking at the possibility of renting or leasing a small office but we're not quite at that point yet. We would like to take add Google Places/G+ by adding an address & phone number giving us more real estate for the small Brand we are trying to build. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what we could add? Thanks in Advance!
Reviews and Ratings | | TP_Marketing0 -
Re Posting Reviews
I would like to re post a couple short client reviews on the home page of my site. The reviews are from avvo.com. What is the best way to accomplish this without getting flagged for duplicate content? Should I make an image containing the review text and then link it to the original review on avvo?
Reviews and Ratings | | eddiejsd0