Online Forums exploded since Thursday, February 6th, 2025. People noticed their review counts drastically dropped overnight. People thought it was a review sweep. I messed up and thought Google removed reviews older than February 2019. As it turns out, the two tools I used to scan reviews had issues collecting them. On Saturday, February 8th, 202,5, I counted and matched all 621 reviews for one of my clients. No review was removed, even though Google dropped the review count.
I don’t remember the last time I saw this much panic. The Google Business Profile Subreddit has received 10 threads regarding missing reviews. The threads are receiving multiple replies. People are angry with Google for what they suspect of removing legitimate reviews. One business owner thought somebody was retaliating against them for asking a question on Reddit. There is a thread and discussion on the Local Search Forum. There is an article on Search Engine Roundtable. I am waiting for Barry to update the article to announce it’s a bug and when it gets fixed.
Google is aware of this issue and is investigating it. While there is no official comm from Google, Google has told the Product Experts what statement to use. I used to be a part of this program, you can trust the PEs.
Update February 10, 2025.
Barry has updated the article on Search Engine Roundtable to reflect this is a known bug. There is a sticky post on Reddit where updates will be posted. I will update this post when the issue is resolved.
Update February 10, 2025
A Google employee Victoria Kroll, posted this message:
“We’re aware of an issue affecting some Google Business Profiles, causing some profiles to show lower-than-actual review counts due to a display issue. The reviews themselves have not actually been removed. We’re working hard to resolve this and restore accurate review counts as quickly as possible. We appreciate your patience and will share updates on this thread as they become available.
Before reporting missing reviews, please note that there are several reasons why reviews may be removed from maps. Usually, missing reviews are removed for policy violations like spam or inappropriate content. Read more about our Review policy guidelines here before proceeding. You can also refer to the Help Center Article for more information.”
Update February 11, 2025.
I am seeing signs of review counts getting corrected. One business had 101 reviews yesterday, and today, they show 109. Another business profile I am monitoring saw an increase in their review count.
