Google Reviews are extremely important to businesses, especially those in the service, retail and hospitality industries. Lately we've noticed that Google Reviews are being removed from our client's profiles at an alarming pace and while the reasons aren't exactly clear there are some clues.
Too Many Reviews in a Short Time Period
If your Google Business Profile page receives many reviews in a short time, the spam detectors may be triggered. You should only ask a subset of your customers for reviews at a time. You should be concerned if your Google Business Profile page receives 50 new reviews overnight.
If your business page suddenly receives too many reviews, it is likely that they will be considered spam by Google and deleted.
Too Many Total Reviews
If your company has far more reviews than others in your industry and city/area, this may cause concern. If your business is in a rural town of 1000 people, but you have 4000 business reviews, don’t be surprised if many of them are removed. I’m sure you make fantastic sandwiches, but why does your competitor down the street only have 8 Google Business Profile reviews?
Giving Incentives for Reviews
Do not offer discounts, coupons, or free products to entice customers to leave a review. If Google finds out, you could lose all of your reviews. When you offer an incentive, you increase the likelihood of receiving a positive review, which incorrectly skews the results. Offer no incentives for reviews.
Different Reviews Same IP address
Similar to the previous point, spam filters may be triggered if many reviews come from the same IP address outside of your company. If this occurs, the reviews are almost certainly spam or fake. There’s no way your company received 19 genuine reviews from the same physical location.
There are dozens of other reasons Google might remove your reviews and if you need more clarification, contact Google Business Support.