Guide

Why did my Google reviews disappear?

You had 34. Now you have 31. Nobody told you, nothing was announced, and the three that went were not the bad ones.

Doparoot · 31 August 2026

First, check they're actually gone

Before assuming Google took them: reviews can look missing when the profile itself has changed underneath them.

• Search your business in incognito and count. Your own logged-in view sometimes lags
• Look for a duplicate listing. If somebody created a second profile for your business, your reviews may be sitting on the other one, being read by nobody
• Check the profile is still verified. A suspended profile takes its reviews out of public view with it

If the count drops by one or two occasionally, that is normal attrition. If it drops by twenty overnight, that is a profile problem, not a review problem, and the rest of this page is the wrong page.

Six reasons reviews disappear

1. The spam filter took them

This is the most common cause. Google runs automated filters against review spam, and they are not gentle. Nobody is notified, no reason is given, and it is not a judgement about your business.

The single biggest trigger is a burst: several reviews posted in a short window from the same place, on the same network. Which is exactly what happens when a well-meaning owner hands the tablet round the staff room, or asks eight customers on one Friday.

2. The reviewer deleted their account

Reviews are attached to a Google account. If the account goes, so does everything it ever wrote. There is nothing to appeal and nobody to ask.

3. The reviewer deleted the review

People tidy up their own review history more often than you would think, particularly if they later became a customer of somebody else.

4. Something in the wording broke a policy

Google removes reviews containing personal information, promotional content, a link, profanity, or content about something other than the customer's own experience. A review naming a specific staff member's home town, or quoting a price list, can go for reasons that have nothing to do with you.

5. Your profile was merged with a duplicate

When Google merges two listings, reviews do not always survive the journey intact. This usually happens after an address change, a rebrand, or somebody claiming a listing that already existed.

6. They were incentivised, and it showed

If reviews were collected with a discount or a prize draw attached, they are against Google's policy and they can be removed in a batch. The same applies to gating — screening customers and only sending the link to the happy ones, which is what a lot of reputation software quietly does on your behalf.

Can you get them back?

Honestly: sometimes, and less often than you would like.

• Removed in error — you can appeal through Google Business Profile support. It is worth doing for a substantial review and not worth your afternoon for one
• Removed by the spam filter — rarely reinstated, and you cannot see the reason
• Deleted by the customer — gone. You can ask them, politely, once
• Lost in a merge — sometimes recoverable through support, and worth chasing if a lot went at once

What does not work is asking the customer to post it again immediately. A re-posted identical review from the same account is exactly the pattern the filter is looking for.

How to lose fewer of them

You cannot control the filter. You can stop feeding it:

• Ask steadily, not in bursts. Two or three a week for a year beats twenty in an afternoon, and it looks like what it is — a business doing work
• Never on your own wifi. Do not hand a customer your tablet or ask them to do it in your reception. Send the link, let them write it at home
• No incentives, ever. Not a discount, not a draw entry
• Do not screen first. Ask everyone, take what comes

In our study of 141 local service businesses, the median review count in towns under 5,000 people was 12. Steady beats clever, and there is much less competition than it feels like from the inside.