Reputation Management How to Flag & Remove Fake Reviews from Google, Yelp, & Facebook

I have repeatedly written about how to deal with reviews about your company: how to collect them and respond to customers – both praise and outrage. Reaction to them depends on who writes to you and for what purpose: whether the user is mistaken, whether waiting for a solution to his problem and getting benefits.

However, there is another type of reviews – fake negative reviews, which are deliberately left by competitors and detractors. It is easy to create an account and leave a fake review about another firm (or, for example, a former employer). But how to respond to it – it is unclear, because everything that is written in the review, simply does not correspond to the truth. But you can’t say it directly either. Other users probably won’t believe the excuses.

Let’s figure out how to deal with fake negative reviews in a way that completely neutralizes their impact.

Removing bad reviews on Google

Google does not have a list price for deleting negative reviews, as many “rate sites” have. It is possible to remove a review  in certain violations by the author of the review:

• Spreading false information
• Alcohol and tobacco advertising
• Pornography
• Drug propaganda
• Violence and extremism
• User activity/subscribers

How to report a violation on Google:

1. Open Google Maps
2. Go to the company’s information
3. Find an undesirable review
4. Click on the flag icon and select Complain

Removing bad Yelp reviews

Removing bad Yelp reviews is something every business owner needs to take seriously. Business reviews – especially ones in a major directory, like Yelp – can make all the difference to a business’ reputation. Here’s how you can try to remove a bad review that your business received on Yelp.

Before we get to removing and flagging malicious or false reviews, let’s take a look at Yelp’s content guidelines and regulations. 

Here are the grounds for removing bad Yelp reviews:

• When a business review is not from a customer’s perspective;;
• When the reviewer is not talking about a personal experience;
• When a review is disputing an existing review;
• If the reviews are plagiarized;
• When the reviews are posted on the wrong business page;
• When the reviews talk about business policies, service offerings, or policies.
• Reviewers cannot post the names or other personal details of the business employees they interact with. For example, they cannot add the name or address of a restaurant’s waiter to the review. On these grounds, you can remove the review.Although, there is an exception to this rule. If the review contains the personal details of a business that has the name of the employer, the use of names is solicited. Example: If the business is named “X” Realty, you can mention X’s name in your review.

How to report a violation on Yelp:

Go to the review that you want to remove and click on the “flag” icon at the bottom of the review.

Removing bad reviews on Facebook

Are you sick and tired of bad Facebook reviews chasing away customers? In this post, I’ll reveal everything you need to know about how to remove reviews from Facebook. There’s a lot to cover, so stick with me. By end of this post you’ll be able to get rid of bad Facebook reviews, report fake ones, and even disable them all.

How to report a violation on Facebook:

1. Navigate to the Reviews tab of your business page.
2. Click the three horizontal dots in the upper right-hand corner of the review.
3. Click “Give feedback on this recommendation.”

What many entrepreneurs don’t know is that it is possible to completely remove reviews. This option can be found under “settings”. Then no one can write any review on the likes page, neither someone who likes you or not, so it has its pluses and minuses, which you should consider. The harsh reality is that we who run our own enough simply, generally, get used to the transparency of the web and that customers and others give us both rice and rose as ratings for our products and services. Therefore, it does not recommend, in the first place, that you completely remove the review function other than in that case temporarily, for a period of time. As long as the predominant ratings are more in the positive direction, there is no danger on the croft.

And don’t forget. Every negative feedback (if it is really constructive and from your client/employee) is a great help to your business, it is a point of growth. Understand the problem. Perhaps it is because of this reason that the lion’s share of your customers does not buy from you again, and quality personnel leave the company. If you solve the problem, you save the client/employee and no longer set precedents for this situation.