Recently, it has been discovered that Google Maps is emailing customers who have posted a review for any business when their review is flagged as fake and, therefore, not posted.

It came to light after Lucio Laria –Consultant SEO International raised this issue on the Google Business Profile community. When a help forum titled Legitimate Review started getting flagged as “Fake Engagement”, he wrote:

Hello,
I just settled my Google profile and asked my client for a review. Google is filing this review as a fake engagement when this person is a legitimate client of mine.I’m waiting for this to be fixed before asking any other of my clients for their reviews.Why is this happening, and how can I fix it?
Thanks,

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Among the many conjectured reasons and suggestions put forth by knowledgeable forum members are the following:

  • It may be related to the review content. See prohibited and restricted content. Ask the reviewer to delete it and then write a new review.
  • It may be due to a problem with the reviewer’s account.
  • Because the provider is in France and the client is in Argentina, the distance between them could be the reason.
  • Ask the reviewer to try again, leaving a 4-5 sentence review, and add specifics about the services provided and, if pertinent, the location at which they were provided. If that fails, ask them to leave a review from another account.

The reviewer received the email notification about 15 minutes after posting the review. As the forum community pointed out, the review was being “filtered by an algorithm that enforces Google’s content policies”.

Why You Should Pay Attention to This Issue:

As we all know, getting legitimate reviews is not an easy task. It takes a lot of effort to impress a client, and even more to convince the client to post a good review. It is disappointing when our sometimes hard-to-get legitimate reviews get taken down for “algorithmic” reasons, as requesting the client to post it again can be a bit awkward.

So, it’s crucial to learn how to get our good reviews to stick. The better we can prep our customers and clients, the better chance to get it right the first time.

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