A business reached out asking for help removing a negative review. Upon reviewing the review text and the reviewer’s profile, I didn’t see any evidence warranting the removal of the review. The reviewer in question only posted three reviews and one rating. Google is giving them credit for two reviews and one rating. Currently, only one review and one rating are visible. I am confident that one review was removed. There are two known bugs this week that are negatively impacting reviews. One is the 5-day bug. Google is removing reviews five days after they were posted. The second bug appeared over the weekend of February 14th and 15th, 2026. With the second bug, Google seems to removed a large number of reviews from business profiles.
The review in question doesn’t appear to violate the TOS. That is, until I clicked on the photo. The photo was taken from Shutterstock. The reviewer even failed to crop the photo to remove the Shutterstock name from the bottom. We know that the photo violates the TOS Guidelines, but does the review? I think so, but will Google? This review and the reviewer’s profile need to be investigated by Google.
How to properly flag a review for removal
- You need to use the Google Business review removal tool.
- You need to wait a few days after to flag the review to see if it gets removed
- If the review does not get removed, you need to check the status and appeal the reviews.
- If that doesn’t work, you need to file another appeal. This form will generate a case ID for you.
- If the review is still not removed, you need to post for help on the Google Business Profile Help Forum
Hopefully, the review and/or photo will get removed.
