Local Businesses Fighting for Google Reviews
Small, local businesses are facing challenges with online reputation management, including fake reviews, low review volume, unanswered reviews, and being outranked by competitors despite positive customer feedback. These businesses often find support from platforms like Google unresponsive and struggle to maintain a fair online presence. This impacts their visibility and ultimately, their business.
SOURCES (60)
“Just got "quality rating" in my stats today after being on old ratings for so long, how long should I expect the new ratings system to take to update now? Also sucks I'll now be punished for missing / damaged items even if the restaurant…”
“I'm not paying Yelp. Ever. No need to convince me how sh!tty they are. We're all on the same page there... However, I'd like to create a free Yelp profile for a couple of reasons. First, I think it will help with SEO to have the link to my site from their site. Second, when you Google my business, the fourth site listed is Yelp but with the old (now defunct) business info which I obviously don't want. Aside from everything being incorrect, it has old logos, old services, old ever”
“If they actually used it and stuck around, ask them what almost made them leave instead of asking for a review, fixing that gets better feedback later.”
“I don’t think there’s one universally trustworthy platform. I’d start with the place your buyers already use, then test whether adding its reviews actually improves conversion without hurting page speed. But I think there’s a deeper issue: every platform eventually compresses years of personal, contextual experiences into one static average. That may provide social proof, but it doesn’t show what customers are repeatedly experiencing right now. I’m building Boxumer around a different approach. C”
“I honestly wish Google had a better process for this. A customer not liking the food or service is one thing, but making factual claims about a business that can be shown to be untrue is something completely different. submitted by /u/warw1zard666 [link] [comments]”
“The tip that I would like to share for a newbie like you is: FIRST FOCUS on the UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS. Skip the cold outreach and go straight to the 1 star or 2 star reviews of existing software in that space. People won't always tell you what they want on a call, but they will happily post online about what’s currently breaking their workflow or the disliking in the current scenario. That's where you will work on loopholes of the existing companies/products. Problem kills Problem.”
“start with asking your friends to test the product and get some real reviews. Then put give a review as a part of the journey for your clients with maybe a discount for the ones that do it”
“I am curious what actually works when google rejects a fake review report. I was helping with a local business profile where a review looked completely unrelated to the business but the first report was rejected. The owner had already checked their customer records and could not find anything matching the person or the situation mentioned in the review. It seems like simply reporting the review again does not always get anywhere. For those managing SEO or google business profiles then what do yo”
“How do you handle yourselves when you get called out in bad google reviews? Out of the three years I’ve been practicing, I’ve consistently received great reviews from my patients on Google but suddenly in the last 3 weeks I’ve been hit with 2 back to back “1-star” reviews. The hard part is they came from patients who I thought I was connecting well with, we were making great progress with their rehab, then suddenly the bad review. One of them included our scheduling issues (in a round about way)”
“Most shops get better review volume from a simple text sent the same day the vehicle is picked up than from a QR code at the counter. The issue is timing: people mean to do it, then forget once they leave. Keep it to one link, one ask, and send it only to clearly satisfied customers.”
“I'm a new shop owner and I've made a couple hundred sales and have received 100 positive reviews and lots of messages with positive feedback. I've just received some negative feedback and I'm not too sure what to do. I sell handmade accessories with a choice of two attachment styles. My listing photos show only one style but I also have an infographic showing both attachment options side by side with pictures and the pros and cons, uses, etc. I also have a little write-up in my d”
“I kept noticing the same thing with customer testimonials. A business would have 20, 50, sometimes hundreds of happy customers, but most of that feedback was sitting in email threads, Google Docs, screenshots, or somewhere in a CRM. And when they actually wanted to use a testimonial, the process was surprisingly manual: Find the message → ask for permission → take a screenshot → resize it → make a social post → repeat. So I started building something around this problem. The idea was pretty simp”
“Hi people, 3 months ago, I posted here about my website, which got a lot of positive feedback. It featured a map of businesses that had removed user reviews from Google Maps in Germany by using the new defamation law. I received a lot of feedback, and I noticed that many people shared the same thought: ratings on Google Maps are becoming less and less useful because businesses buy reviews, run promotions offering discounts in exchange for a review, and so on. Based on the map project, I decided”
“I manage a few local seo clients and fake google reviews are always one of those things where the advice sounds simple until you actually have to deal with one. Usually i start by checking whether the reviewer was an actual customer and documenting anything suspicious such as copied wording, unusual account activity or several reviews appearing at the same time. Then i report it and if needed go through the appeal process. However in majority of the cases it does nothing. I am curious how others”
“Your idea about giving a free club membership is enticing but i would like to share with you something. i recently did an analysis of around 17K HVAC Google reviews from 100 different hvac companies in the US. One of the major themes in the 1 and 2 star reviews was that people who were on such memberships were not given any priority scheduling when they wanted the services although it was promised at the time of the sale. these people felt cheated and left a bad review. the research is published”
“I’m noticing a lot of people moving away from Google Maps as a primary source of navigation, and that is where my small business has received most of our substantive reviews. Other map apps, like Apple and Mapquest, link to Yelp for ratings and reviews, but around the greater Seattle area people only really seem to use Yelp for restaurants. What are other small business owners doing to adjust for this change in how users might find your business? The last thing I want to do is pay Yelp any money”
“We have a transmission shop in a local town for around 20 years and have 40 reviews right now. There's a new shop that opened up a few years ago is already at over 500 reviews somehow. I'm not worried about reviews but trying to bury fake reviews that have been left from the other shop. Currently have a qr code at the desk, something on their invoice, and usually verbally ask sometimes. It doesn't seem to be working though. I've looked into some text/email review request but not”
“yeah the status screen is underrated as a product surface. one thing worth thinking about, do users need to act on the "needs review" items right then, or can they come back later? that distinction changes the whole UX of that page”
“The overwhelming response was that I should leave an honest review, so I have done that. I hope I've been factual and remained calm in the review. The reason I even asked or wondered, was that the seller seems legitimately aggressive and the actions she has previously taken make me think that she may continue to harass me after I leave a bad review. And that might still be true, although I hope it isn't. As a frequent buyer and Etsy I would appreciate somebody leaving an honest review so”
“vladeta's benchmark is right but there's a piece missing for a brand new store specifically: trust, not checkout friction, is usually the bigger lever. when you have zero reviews, no order history showing up anywhere, and a domain nobody's heard of, people get all the way to checkout on curiosity or a good ad, then bail at the last second because paying $60-100 to a store they've never heard of suddenly feels riskier than it did two screens ago. that shows up in your data as a ch”
“Great website, NextDoor, and using someone for review and reputation management to increase your trust and visibility. The last one is the most important tbh.”
“This is so true I respond to every review. We get a few what STAR reviews. I respond to immediately addressing their concern. Every company has good reviews of bad reviews. It’s part of the mix. Don’t you sleep over it. If you only had five star reviews I would think something suspicious.”
“Former CMO here: One or two low reviews builds trust. Perfect 5 star situations read as inauthentic and pay-to-play. As others have said, respond professionally and people will read between the lines.”
“Reply to the review, empathise that they were disappointed. There seems to be a miscommunication somewhere (don't take ownership until you have the facts that you were in the wrong but at the same time be open to hear their experience of the situation) Someone wants to be heard and it's and opportunity to do better in the future even if it's to place better controls on changes and designs.”
“If a customer won’t come to you because of a review, then that’s a customer you didn’t want”
“id focus on one of those things and not a whole solution (you can add those later). The review thing could be very useful to a business owner.”
“Pricing pages and hiring trends matter more than reviews, since they signal actual strategy shifts instead of just customer sentiment”
A clever honest response to the review will go a long way.
“Yeah I agree with not letting it send and to be honest with my tools I also write up the outreach. I think that the tools are great at finding the outreach and prioritising it for you, but then at the point of writing something, it's best to have it written by yourself”
“The math not helping is not a failure on your part, and it is worth saying why it does not help. A hundred people wrote that the cake was good. One person wrote that you are unreliable and rude. Those are not the same kind of statement, so they do not cancel out. The praise landed on the work. That one landed on your character, in public, in front of exactly the people whose opinion you have spent years earning. Nobody averages those two things, and you are not broken for refusing to. The other”
“You don’t know how to run a business. I ran a mom and pop, $90mil annually, if we got a one star, we got a notice, and I was the one that had to get it retracted. 7:00am or earlier, we have quick meeting, see why it happened, address it with the customer and ask to retract, and give us 7 days to try and make it right (construction), every time, they retracted and didn’t repost…just help make the customer feel good in the end, but you don’t have to give away the farm, but be fair. Losing one job”
“Yep. I want to see a few bad reviews. I want to see some assholes say some bullshit. I want to see the business owner respond with the actual details. When I check out a business's reviews I look at the good ones but then I go to the bad ones. With the super well reviewed business you either learn that the person is complaining about something that doesn't matter, or the reviewer is unreasonable.”
“You know the new to me restaurants I like to pick? The ones with 4.5 stars and the bad reviews all say it's bad service because I know that place is gonna be incredible. Respond laying out your point of view kindly and respectfully and when people read the review and your response they'll take your side. One thing I like doing when reading bad reviews (for my own company or on yelp for a restaurant) is to go look at their other reviews. When they have like 0 other reviews or they're”
“Small bakery. We have hundreds of good reviews. Last week we got a one-star from someone who ordered a cake, changed the design twice by text, then complained it was not the original design, and left a review calling us unreliable and rude. We were not rude. I have the texts. It is objectively unfair. And I cannot stop thinking about it. I have read it maybe forty times. I drafted three replies and deleted them all. Meanwhile a hundred kind reviews sit there and I have not reread a single one of”
“Thanks. Since the 30 to 60 day window is what landed, curious what that makes you want to know next, is it "what do I actually do once an account's flagged," or something else you'd need answered before this feels useful?”
“Of the owners you’ve spoken with, can any point to a recent review they actually missed or answered late, and what happened because of it?”
“I do review management and SEO on the side. My main businesses needed it so I started doing it for myself. Once you have the tools it’s easy to help others.”
“I didn’t realize that I could respond to reviews, so I’ve basically just been collecting them 🫢. I have some reviews that truly brought a smile to my face and I just left it there- dead silence . I’m so embarrassed. Do you respond to your reviews? What should I do? submitted by /u/Healthy_Look9857 [link] [comments]”
“A seller messaged me after my 3 star review and asked me to reconsider the rating. I understand wanting to fix a bad experience, but I’m not sure where normal follow up ends and pressure starts. Is one polite message fine? What about repeated requests, a discount or a refund? submitted by /u/Crazy_Junket8335 [link] [comments]”
“Public review directories suffer from massive negative selection bias because happy customers rarely go out of their way to search for a profile and post praise. Without active post-purchase prompting, even top tier ecommerce brands look like scams on unmanaged listings.”
“For a new tabletop store, locking yourself into high monthly fees will burn your marketing budget fast. The free tiers on those enterprise review sites heavily restrict how you embed widgets, meaning you cannot display your rating without upgrading.”
“I'm running a few apps with real users and I'm starting to drown in reviews + support emails and at this point starting to just put it off. Anyone have an actual process, or do you just check them when you remember? Also curious how you decide what's worth fixing first vs. what's just noise. submitted by /u/Flimsy_Adeptness_624 [link] [comments]”
It might get flagged and your review maybe disabled for a month
“Hmm... Is it an experiment? I'm seeing all reviews both on the web and in the app (Android phone).Having said so, I am not hopeful. Amazon has gone the enshittification route with the gusto few companies have. And they've been actively (and gleefully) making some of the most useful features near useless. This can be seen most pointedly with order history search. Whereas in the past searching for a string brought up the past orders based on string match, now trying to search for a given term brin”
“I don't think most small stores know the number, because the lost sales are basically invisible. Someone asks a question, doesn't get a reply for 6 hours, buys somewhere else, and it just looks like another visitor who bounced. I'd probably start tagging pre-sale conversations and checking how many convert depending on response time. Even a rough comparison between replies within 15 minutes vs a few hours could tell you if it's actually worth prioritizing. Questions: Are most of”
“This is a collection problem, not a customer problem, and the mechanism is worth understanding. On Etsy, eBay and Reverb the platform asks every buyer for a review on a schedule, so you get the whole distribution, happy people included. The Shop app doesn't work that way. The people who open Shop after ordering are mostly people checking where their package is, so your review pool is skewed toward whoever had a reason to go looking. Same customers, same service, self-selected sample. Two fix”
That feeling when a customer tells you what you did right, amazing
“Hi, I'm one of the employees of a very small dessert shop. Everything we sell is actually good, never had any complaints, and we have a 4.9 rating on google. The store is just located in a bad area, a newly built shopping mall no one knows about. Most weekdays see a maximum of 5-10 people. It's family run and they can't afford an actual social media manager, so they asked me if I could help during my downtime and of course I couldn't say no. That being said, my only experience is”
“I sell on a variety of platforms including Etsy, eBay, and Reverb. On all of those platforms, I have a review rating of about 98%-99%, with the same products, same customer service, and same policies. On Shopify/ Shop, I have an average review rating of about 4.2-4.5 stars. It seems like, for some reason, customers are far more likely to leave a review from a negative experience than those who have a positive experience. How do I incentivize more positive reviewers? submitted by /u/T”