Is Deleting Negative Reviews Against the Law?

Negative reviews might be deleted without knowing the full impact. View our guide below to learn more.

Naturally, you do your hardest to deliver the greatest experiences and get rave reviews when you run a restaurant or a company that sells products or services to the public. You could have even created a Google Business Profile where customers can post Google reviews, or you may have been in touch with Google Local Services to buy advertisements to help your company grow.

A successful company depends on positive customer feedback, yet as the phrase goes, “you can’t please everyone all the time.” People rely on local legal rules to guarantee that a company owner’s image is not wrongfully tarnished since negative or inaccurate material online may negatively affect the online reputation of both firms and individuals.

As a company owner, you depend on favorable reviews, and although a good Google review might boost your company, a negative one could have the opposite impact. Every Google review should be judged on its own merits. It is inappropriate for dubious or fraudulent reviews to continue on Google or other websites like Yelp or Amazon if their only goal is to disparage your company unfairly. You should keep an eye on your company account and get familiar with the procedures for removing Google reviews created solely to harm and disparage your organization.

 

Reasons for Bad Reviews 

Most of the time, those who leave negative evaluations do so because of unpleasant events. In light of this, you should be ready for customers dissatisfied with a particular aspect of your company to express their unhappiness by posting a bad online review about it on Yelp or Google.

Additionally, it would help if you were equipped to react. Not only do you encourage these negative reviews if you don’t answer, but you also risk losing the chance to win the individual over by taking a moment to address their concerns.

If you have a customer care staff, this is likely your greatest chance to have them handle client reviews, which may result in more favorable evaluations. Remember that your business depends on the reputation of your brand online. Negative reviews on Google, Yelp, Amazon, or other websites, such as social media sites, can significantly impact how your company is perceived based on customer experiences, whether positive or negative and can significantly affect revenue and sales.

 

Carefully Consider Each Negative Review

Any review should be read at least twice. Is the Google review credible? Did the reviewer eat at your restaurant? Did they order your products? Do they have a valid complaint against a restaurant or the services provided by your company? Does the review include irrelevant rants that have no connection to the services you provide specifically? Does the review use foul language?

Most websites disapprove of inappropriate reviews, including those posted several times, including any information that is forbidden, off-topic, or doesn’t address any relevant aspects of the alleged “poor experience.”

Many internet trolls will launch into personal rants, publish false information about the brand to influence ratings, or write poor reviews that have nothing to do with true customer experiences. These people may also be rivals or even current or former employees.

Even utilizing several Google accounts is a step many are willing to take. This involves publishing Google reviews, even fictitious ones that are very poor, or even posting repeatedly to cast doubt on you. Even someone who does not know your company but found your business listing via a Google search and left a negative review is possible. 

This damages your brand’s internet reputation and maybe raise rivals’ ratings. If you can demonstrate that this is the case, you may attempt to have the reviews made only for malicious purposes and/or potentially influence future purchases removed.

If you ask Google to do anything about these deliberately detrimental reviews, they will do so if your request complies with their rules and regulations addressing damaging and defamatory reviews.

On the other hand, if the review is legitimately unfavorable, you may take action to prevent it from happening again by resolving the problem, perhaps turning an unhappy client into a pleased one.

 

Procedures to Remove Google Reviews

It would help if you made every effort to get a bad or unfavorable Google review of your business removed. There are specific procedures for handling complaints or requests to delete unfavorable reviews on each search engine or website.

To get rid of Google reviews, particularly fraudulent Google reviews, a number of procedures must be followed: 

  1. First, open your Google Maps app and login into a Google account to request the removal of a review. 
  2. Look for your company online.
  3. Decide whether to read Google evaluations of your company.
  4. Select all the reviews. 
  5. Click the three dots in the upper right corner of the review you wish to delete from Google.
  6. Choose “Flag as inappropriate.” 

Google should consider your request, and if they agree with you -as they may if they found that such prohibited material was being used- they should remove the reported Google reviews.

In the end, it’s really a good thing to have a mixture of both positive and negative evaluations on Google and other websites that allow people to submit reviews. It is beneficial if the product has one or two bad reviews, with the most favorable evaluations. This shows that you are a legitimate company and that your evaluations weren’t created by friends or staff members who wanted to provide flattering comments about your enterprise. A few unfavorable evaluations demonstrate the legitimacy.

Even highly regarded companies in your neighborhood can sometimes get unfavorable reviews on Google since that is just the way things are. It demonstrates that as a company owner, things are not always ideal and that certain circumstances are just beyond your control.

 

Eliminating False Amazon Reviews

Remember that not all bad reviews can be deleted, so it could be a good idea to choose the ones that might hurt your company the most and make an effort to get them deleted.

For instance, Amazon will examine and delete input if the reviewer used profanity or disclosed information that may be used to identify you since these are against their standards and policies for all reviews.

Since such reviews are added to Amazon’s product review area, transaction feedback that includes an Amazon product review may be deleted from the feedback profile. Go to Seller Central and create a new support case to make your case if this is the situation.

Follow these procedures to ask for the elimination of a biased, false, or unjust negative review:

  1. Click Account Settings, Orders, and lastly, Problems with customer feedback.
  2. Explain why you think the comments should be deleted using a few specifics but not too many, and then submit the message.

Nobody likes getting bad reviews in real life or on an e-commerce site. It would be best if you took swift action to maintain your stellar rating since receiving unfavorable comments on the Amazon seller account may significantly negatively influence your sales, revenues, and Buy Box %.

 

Social Media Has a Significant Effect on Businesses

Millions of users are active on social media platforms, and their remarks may impact both the reputations of people and companies. Perhaps the most often used medium for companies to promote their brands and attract new clients is Facebook. Getting bad information deleted might thus be equivalent to having a positive rating for your company.

So, you may wonder, “How can I erase a review on Facebook?” There is no quick fix, the procedure isn’t always simple, and you may have to wait to get your desired results.

  1. Click the reviews link in the click menu, then leave a comment on the insulting review. Facebook page owners cannot just delete specific reviews by themselves; the Facebook Team must step in.
  2. Mark the evaluation. Click the arrow pointing down in the post’s top-right corner to flag a review.
  3. Await the Facebook team’s consideration of the request; the review will be removed if approved.

 

Utilize the Services of a Reputation Management Company

You may want to delete many internet reviews and comments, particularly offensive or negative ones, but be aware that the procedure can be time- and energy-consuming. Through a succession of search results, you can discover that it would be preferable to focus your effort on fixing problems with your company strategy rather than deleting several Google reviews.

It is advised that you hire good online reputation management (ORM) company to assist you in deleting negative or incorrect Google reviews. An ORM has expertise in dealing with bad reviews on Google and other websites and may assist in removing untrue or unfavorable reviews.

Having inaccurate or unfavorable information might substantially hinder your capacity to win over future consumers and even increase the likelihood that you will lose current ones. To make any positive reviews stand out even more, they will go over and above to erase any negative ones.

 

Contact Us for Review Management for Online Brand Reputation 

Whether you’re a person or a company owner, you are aware that preserving a stellar internet reputation is a difficult task. It must be a thorough procedure. It must encompass not just your brand’s website but also a range of sources (like review sites) that often score well in searches related to your sector. However, it is still feasible.

Finding a trustworthy companion can be all you need to begin going. Get in touch with us to learn more about review management intricacies and to start putting them into practice to safeguard your company’s image.

Get More Reviews!

Best-In-Class Reputation Review Management Software.
GET OFFER!
close-link