{"id":21146,"date":"2022-09-20T11:23:02","date_gmt":"2022-09-20T10:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.improvemysearchranking.com\/?p=21146"},"modified":"2023-11-23T13:40:19","modified_gmt":"2023-11-23T13:40:19","slug":"google-prohibits-bribing-customers-to-remove-negative-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.improvemysearchranking.com\/google-prohibits-bribing-customers-to-remove-negative-reviews\/","title":{"rendered":"Google prohibits bribing customers to remove negative reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Has this ever happened to you?<\/p>\n<p>A customer leaves a bad or negative review about your local business. You reach out to them, try to make amends, and offer them a discount or free goods to make them happy. As a result, they modify or remove the negative review.<\/p>\n<p>Seems like an excellent idea, right?<\/p>\n<p>Not anymore, unfortunately.<\/p>\n<p>Google has updated its Google Maps review guidelines. According to this late update, incentivizing customers to modify or remove negative reviews is now prohibited by Google.<\/p>\n<p>The guidelines say, <em>\u201cContent that has been incentivized by a business in exchange for discounts, free goods and\/or services.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Now, Google has added the following line of text to the guideline, which makes it prohibitive for local businesses to use incentives for modifying negative reviews:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThis includes merchant requests for revision or removal of a negative review through offered discounts, free goods or services, or other incentives.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Fake Engagement |Deceptive Content<\/h2>\n<p>In \u201cFake engagement\u201d, under the \u201cDeceptive content\u201d section, Google has the following guidelines.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Paying, incentivising, or encouraging the posting of content that does not represent a genuine experience.<\/li>\n<li>Content that is not based on real experiences and does not accurately represent the location or product in question.<\/li>\n<li>Content that has been incentivized by a business in exchange for discounts, free goods, and\/or services. <strong>This includes merchant requests for revision or removal of a negative review through offered discounts, free goods or services, or other incentives<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Content that has been posted by a competitor to undermine a business or product\u2019s reputation.<\/li>\n<li>Content that has been posted from multiple accounts to manipulate a place\u2019s rating.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The idea of these guidelines is to ensure that Google Maps reflect a genuine experience of a business or place.<\/p>\n<p>You can read the full set of guidelines regarding <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/contributionpolicy\/answer\/7400114\">prohibited and restricted content here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>The takeaway for local businesses<\/h2>\n<p>If you have a local business listed on Google Maps, it may be tempting to incentivize people who left negative reviews and ask them to modify their bad reviews.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>It is now explicitly prohibited by Google and goes against the user-generated content policy that Google has for Google Maps.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to this, remember that incentivizing or encouraging content that does not represent a genuine experience is also against Google\u2019s policies. Similarly, encouraging or incentivizing people through free goods\/services or discounts in exchange for positive reviews is also prohibited.<\/p>\n<p>Learn more about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.improvemysearchranking.com\/how-to-ask-and-get-positive-customer-reviews\/\">how to ask and get more positive customer reviews<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Has this ever happened to you? A customer leaves a bad or negative review about your local business. You reach out to them, try to make amends, and offer them a discount or free goods to make them happy. As a result, they modify or remove the negative review. Seems like an excellent idea, right? [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":21148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oct_exclude_from_cache":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"categories":[67,37,52],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Google Bans Removal of Bad Reviews | IMSR<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Incentivizing customers to modify or remove negative reviews is now prohibited by Google. 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