How to Delete a Google Review

How to Delete a Review from Your Google Business Profile

In this article, we’ll walk you through how to delete a Google review—or at least how to try. Unfortunately, there isn’t a big “delete” button. However, if you are the owner of the business that has received a review that violates Google’s content policy, there are different ways you can go about getting the review removed. The first and most obvious method is to flag the review for a policy violation. 

How to delete Google Reviews on your computer: 

1. Sign in to your Google account on your computer.
2. Navigate to business.google.com
3. In the left-hand navigation, select “Reviews”
4. Select the “More” icon (three horizontal dots) next to the review you want to flag
5. Select “Flag as inappropriate” 
6. Click the reason you are flagging the review
7. Click “Submit” 

How to delete Google Reviews on Android:

1. Open the Google Maps app on your Android Device.
2. Click your profile picture in the top right and navigate to your Business Profile.
3. Tap “Reviews.”
4. Find the review you’d like to report.
5. Click “Report review.”

How to delete Google Reviews on iPhone and iPad:

1. Open the Google Maps app on your iPhone or iPad.
2. Click your profile picture in the top right and navigate to your Business Profile.
3. Tap “Reviews.”
4. Find the review you’d like to report.
5. Tap “Report review.”

How to Delete a Review You Left for a Business on Google

Have you ever left a bad Google review for a business and then had second thoughts? If you want to delete or edit a review that you left, follow the steps below: 

Edit a review from your browser:

1. Log into your Google account
2. Navigate to google.com/maps/contrib//reviews/ 
3. In the left-hand menu, scroll down until you find the relevant review
4. Click on the “More” icon (three horizontal dots) 
5. From there, you can select “Edit” or “Delete” 

Edit a review from the Google Maps app: 

1. Open the Google Maps app 
2. In the menu at the bottom of the screen, select “Contribute” 
3. Click “View your profile” next to your profile picture at the top of the screen
4. Scroll down until you find the relevant review
5. Select the “More” icon (three horizontal dots”
6. Select your preferred action (Edit or Delete) 

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Is it possible to remove a Google Review someone left you?

In short, yes. There may be times when false or libelous comments make it so you need to know how to remove Google reviews. There are steps you can take if you feel that your company has been wronged with a review or a review has been faked.

The good news is that you can dispute a Google review. However, it is not an easy process and there’s no guarantee you’ll be successful

Unfortunately, deleting a Google review is not as simple as going to your account on Google and removing the review yourself. Instead, you can contact Google and flag the review with the hope that they will remove it, but there is no guarantee that they will listen to what you have to say and remove the review for you. 

Types of reviews Google will delete

According to Google’s prohibited and restricted content policy, there are five general reasons a review may get removed: civil discourse, deceptive content, mature content, regulated, dangerous or illegal content, and information quality. 

Note that these reasons are not limited to reviews alone, but also include other content types such as photos and videos.

Within these reasons for removal, Google’s policy mentions 20 specific reasons content (such as a review) will get taken down. These are: 

Civil discourse: 

• Harassment
• Hate speech
• Offensive content
• Personal information

Deceptive content:

• Fake engagement
• Impersonation
• Misinformation 
• Misrepresentation 

 Misinformation:

• Obscenity & profanity 
• Sexually explicit content
• Adult-themed content
• Violence & gore

Regulated, dangerous, & illegal:

• Restricted content
• Dangerous content
• Illegal content 
• Child safety 
• Terrorist content 

Information quality:

• Off-topic
• Advertising & solicitation 
• Gibberish & repetitive content 

Examples of Reviews Eligible for Removal

• A disgruntled employee calling their boss names 
• An actual customer who uses slurs / offensive language when describing the business
• A competitor leaving a fake review promoting their own business 
• A review that isn’t about the business at all and was posted on the wrong listing by mistake 
• A fake review posted to make the business rank higher or lower

What to do if you can’t get a review removed

Not all reviews are eligible for removal. And, in some cases, Google may decide to not remove a review even if you think they should. Here are few things you can do to mitigate the potential harm of a negative review: 

Respond to the review

If a negative review is legitimate, one of the first steps the business owner should take is to respond to the reviewer. In some cases, 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. 

That said, never ask a customer to delete a legitimate, negative review of your business unless it violates Google’s content policy. Here are some tips to keep in mind when responding to a negative review:

1. Respond kindly
2. Do not get defensive and don’t make it personal
3. Apologize if necessary and offer to make it right
4. Keep the response brief and to the point
5. Take the conversation to a private channel like text or email

These 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.

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How to respond to a Google Review

Not sure how to log in so you respond to the review? Google makes it pretty simple. Follow these steps:

1. 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 listing by visiting google.com/business and entering details about your business.
2. Sign into Google Business Profile (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.
3. In the menu, select “Reviews.” Then click “Respond” next to the review you would like to address.
4. Type your response and click “Submit.”

How to contact Google Small Business Support

To contact Google’s support for businesses, follow these steps:

1. Log into your Google account
2. Go to https://support.google.com/business/gethelp
3. From the first dropdown, select the relevant business
4. In the field below, describe what you want to do (i.e., “remove a review”)
5. From the list below, select “remove reviews”
6. Click “Next Step” 
7. Select your preferred contact option 

Unfortunately, it can take up to several weeks for Google to get back to you, but you will eventually get an email back addressing your ticket. Once you’ve submitted your request, you’ll also want to have a screenshot of the review in question handy so you can reference it if needed. 

You can also send a tweet to the Google Business Profile 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.

Request removal here: removal request form

Next steps

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 downplay negative reviews

To downplay negative reviews, try these strategies:

• Calmly clarify the situation in your response to the negative review.
• Reconcile the situation and then politely ask your customer (offline) if they are willing to update their negative review to reflect the positive outcome.
• Request and promote more positive customer reviews, which has the effect of pushing the few negative reviews down to the bottom of the search results.

With any company, it’s impossible to get 100% 5-star reviews. There will always be a customer who had a less-than-stellar experience with your business. These types of reviews don’t necessitate removal, but that doesn’t mean you want them to carry much weight when people are considering becoming your customers. 

How bad are “bad” reviews for your business? 

Ultimately, having both bad and good reviews on Google is totally normal. In fact, having a few negative reviews mixed in with mostly positive ones is a good thing—it shows that you are a real business and that you didn’t just beg your friends and family to say nice things about you. Even the top-rated businesses in your area will have a small percentage of negative reviews. Sometimes you just can’t please everyone—and some things are out of your control.

In fact, studies have shown that a perfect 5-star average rating doesn’t convert as well as a 4.9 average rating. In other words, a small percentage of negative reviews probably won’t deter customers from choosing you over a competitor. 

That said, in the case of a fake review or review that violates Google’s content policy, it’s worth deleting the review. 

Get more tips and advice

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.

Get more tips and advice on Google Reviews

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can I delete a Google Review?

The simple answer to this question is “yes,” but you can only delete a Google review if you are the one who left it. If you want to remove a bad Google review from your Google Business Profile (previously called Google My Business), you can flag the review for removal if it meets Googles requirements for a content violation. If this doesn’t work, you can try reaching out to Google support for help removing the review.

2. What is the Google review support contact phone number?

Google does not offer phone support for review removal at this time. Instead, flag the review and request removal by logging into your business profile. You can also seek help from Google’s help center. There, you can search the forum for questions similar to your own or, if you can’t find the right answer, get in touch with Google support via email.

3. Where can I find my Google reviews?

To find reviews that you have left for businesses, follow Google’s instructions here by logging into your Google account and clicking “Find Your Reviews.” To find reviews that other people have left for your business, log into your Google Business Profile and select “Reviews” from the menu.