How to Get a Fake or Unfair Google Review Removed: 5 Ways to Try

Can you get a negative Google review removed?

Sometimes. You have three ways to ask Google: report the review, appeal the decision, and escalate it in the support community. None of them works every time. The one thing that does is the reviewer changing or deleting the review themselves.

Work through the methods in order. You can only appeal a review you have reported, and the support community needs the case ID from your appeal.

Report the review, and choose the reason carefully

On your Google Business Profile, find the review, click the three dots and click Report review. Google asks why:

• Off topic. Use this when the review does not fit one of the specific reasons below, for example a review that is not about work your company did. In our experience reviews are more likely to be removed when reported this way.
• Spam. A fake review or a fake account.
• Conflict of interest. A competitor.
• Profanity. Usually removed pretty easily.
• Bullying or harassment. An attack on a specific person, such as a comment on how one of your technicians looked or dressed.
• Discrimination or hate speech.
• Personal information. If the reviewer posts a specific address, that counts. This comes up for businesses that go to people’s homes and for property management companies, and these are pretty easy to get removed.
• Not helpful. Never use this one.

Google should email you its decision in the next couple of days.

Use Google’s review management tool to appeal

Reporting from the listing gives you nowhere to explain yourself. Google’s review management tool does. It is hard to find, so here is the link: support.google.com/business/workflow/9945796.

1. Select the business with the negative review and click Continue. If your business is not listed, you are probably logged in with an email that does not manage the profile.
2. Choose to report a new review, sort by one stars and click Report review.
3. Come back later and choose to check the status of a review you have already reported. You will see decision pending, no policy violation, or escalated, which means check your email.
4. Once Google has decided, click Appeal eligible reviews, select the review and click Submit an appeal.

In the appeal, say which category the review falls under and add your context: this is a competitor, we never worked with this person, we are being hit with negative reviews out of the blue. Attach any files that back it up. Google takes three to five business days to reply by email.

Reporting and then appealing has been the most effective route through Google. It still is not a 100% success rate.

Call the reviewer

If you have a phone number or email, get in touch, talk to them and work it out. This applies even if it is a competitor.

Once things have calmed down, send them your review link. It opens their one-star review, and they can change it to five stars or remove it. They can also go to your profile, click on their review and click Delete review.

Escalate it in the Google Business Profile support community

Few owners know about this one. When you submit an appeal you get a case ID. Screenshot it.

Go to support.google.com/business/community, click Post a question, write a short summary of what you are trying to fix and paste in the case ID. That lets a moderator escalate the request. Google will try to steer you to help articles before you can post, so push through, confirm and post.

The moderators are not Google employees. Be nice.

How to tell if the review came from a fake account

Click the reviewer’s profile and look at:

• The review count. One review only is a flag.
• The photo. Fake profiles often have just a letter. If it is a face and you are unsure, click the photo and open the image in a new tab. At the end of the URL, change the width from 144 to about 600 and remove the rest of the URL to see it larger. It may be AI-generated.
• Where and when they reviewed. Reviews in the US, Canada and Mexico all in one week were not left by someone who visited all three.
• The text. The same thing copied and pasted, or wording that reads as AI-generated.

Why a couple of bad reviews are not the end of the world

Consumer research points to 4.8 as the most convincing star rating. A profile with nothing but five stars makes some shoppers suspicious, and a couple of negative reviews make the rest look more legitimate.

They also let you show how you handle conflict. Take up to 24 hours to cool off, then reply for the potential customer reading it: let’s make this right, here is our number, please call. That reader wants to know they will be taken care of if things go south.

The easiest way to stop worrying about negative reviews is to have hundreds of positive ones. One water filtration company used to give massive refunds, redo the job and give away free stuff after a one-star review, which cost thousands of dollars. Working with Review Harvest took them from about 100 reviews to 588. Now a one-star review does not drop them below 4.9.