Today we will look at how to fix google reviews not showing up. Let’s talk about the common problem that many business owners face: missing customer reviews on their Google Business Profile (Google Maps). 

The Problem: Customers leave a review but they are not showing up

Google reviews play a critical role in the success of a business and can impact your company’s online visibility, reputation, and ultimately your bottom line. 

That is what it really really sucks that after you make such an effort to get a customer to actually leave you a review, sometimes Google throttles those reviews and they don’t show up on your Google Maps profile. 

This can be frustrating, Not only does this hurt your review profile, but it drastically can affect your local SEO because:

“Reviews play a key role in local SEO ranking and can influence a business’s placement in search results.” (Moz)

In my last video entitled “Why Are My Google Reviews Not Showing Up,” I addressed the common reasons why reviews aren’t showing up. You might want to watch that video just to make sure that the review isn’t breaking any of Google’s policies, etc… 

Many of you left comments, asked questions, and confirm that this is a growing problem with google reviews. 

Karen- “I’m glad I’m not the only person Google is gaslighting.”

 

Johnny- “What if I have a brand new window cleaning service and at least 5 customers have left me reviews and not one of them has shown up??”

 

Humberto- “In my case I have some costumers that left a review and they can see their review along with my other reviews but but their reviews are not shown publicly”

 

Barbēlō- “Customers can see the review they left on their Google. But anyone else can’t see their reviews. So all the recent reviews that have been left to my business don’t show up.”

 

Steve- “Why bother Google reviews are bogus. If they pick and choose the reviews based on what they think is valid not what is valid this null and voids the entire worth of Google reviews…”

So as you can see this missing Google review issue is extremely frustrating for many people as it becomes more and more common. 

But don’t worry. Today I want to show you two ways that you can fix the dreaded missing reviews pandemic.

2 Options on How to Fix Google Reviews Not Showing Up

Solution #1 – The Simple Solution: Ask Customers to Resubmit Reviews*

If your reviews are still missing, reach out to your customers and ask them to resubmit their reviews. Sometimes, Google’s algorithms may mistakenly remove a review, but resubmitting it will often solve the problem.

Here are the steps for a customer to resubmit a missing review on Google Maps:

1. Go to Google Maps
2. Search for the business and click on its Google Maps profile
3. Click on the “Write a review” button
4. Leave a review with the same text as the missing one
5. Submit the review

* Note: Resubmitting a review may not guarantee that it will show up on the business’s Google Maps profile, as Google’s algorithms and policies may still reject it.

Solution #2 – The Slightly More Complicated Solution: Appeal the issue with Google

The second option requires a little more effort in that you probably need a decent relationship with your client because you’ll need to ask your client to give you a screenshot of their review.

And here is why: they can see all the reviews that they have left, even those reviews that haven’t gone live. So, when they log into their google account they can see your missing review. No one else can see it, because for some reason it has been blocked, but they can still see it. They have the evidence.

Simply ask the customer, who kindly left you the review, to take a screenshot of that review and email or text it to you so that you can offer it as proof to Google that this review was left by said client, you can show that it doesn’t violet any of google’s policies, and then you can request that google will release the review. 

Now, of course, I can’t guarantee that this will work. But… I can tell you that it has worked for me. I’ve done it for several clients and it has worked. In fact, typically what happens is this: once you release one or two of these blocked reviews the rest of the reviews will start to show up. It’s like Google will unflag your business and the issue will just kind of go away. That’s what we’re hoping for today!

Here are the steps:

Step 1: Ask your customer to take a screenshot of their review.

I know it’s going to be a little inconvenient to ask your client to do this so I’m going to make it easy for you by showing you step-by-step how to do it and I am also providing a handy quick and dirty cheat sheet. It’s a .jpg so you can easily share it with your clients. Here are the steps:

Take a screenshot of your review

1. Open your web browser and go to the Google Maps website (maps.google.com)
2. Click on the “Menu” button in the top-left corner of the screen and select “Your contributions”
3. If prompted, sign in to your Google account
4. Click on “Reviews” to see a list of all the reviews you’ve written
5. Find the review you want to view and click on it to open the review in detail
6. Take a screenshot of the review
   1. iPhone or iPad- press the Home button and the Power button at the same time. The screenshot will appear in your photos
   2. Android- press the Volume Down button and the Power button at the same time.
   3. PC computer- press the “Print Screen” button on the keyboard or use a screen capture tool.
   4. Apple computer-  Press Command + Shift + 3
7. Email (or text) the screenshot to us

Step 2: Ask Google to look into it.

1. Visit the Google My Business support page (https://support.google.com/business) OR BETTER…go here: https://support.google.com/business/gethelp?issue_description=contact+support
2. Click on “Contact Us” and select “Report an issue with your business information”
3. Sign in with the Google account associated with the business’s Google Maps profile
4. Fill out the form with the relevant information, including a description of the issue (missing review), and attach the screenshot of the missing review
5. Submit the form
6. Wait

++ feel free to steal the cheat below to use for your customers. Simply right click and save 🙂

Note: There’s no guarantee that Google will restore the missing review, as it’s subject to Google’s algorithms and policies. However, this is how you make an official appeal to Google and it is really the most official way to try and resolve the issue.

Conclusion

And that’s it! These few steps should help you get your missing customer reviews back on your Google Maps profile. 

I really hope This solves your issue. 

Don’t let Google’s algorithm cause you to give up on Google reviews. 

They’re extremely important.  Google reviews will help your local SEO and your future customers actually read those reviews and make decisions based on what they see on Google Maps.

Positive reviews can lead to an increase of 5-9% in revenue for local businesses (Harvard)