Stefan Somborac

Two months ago, Google emailed users who manage Business Profiles for schools warning that reviews would be removed and completely disabled by April 30, 2025.

www.seroundtable.com/google-drops...

There was a delay but it has now rolled out in North America.

If there's only one suppression mechanism, then I would assume both manually and algorithmically removed reviews are returning!

TL;DR: I'm not sure.

4/4

If the reviews can return, they obviously aren't deleted, merely suppressed.

I'm not sure if the suppression mechanism is the same for reviews removed manually, by merchant request, and those removed by an algo.

3/4

There's an important difference to consider. The "bad" reviews are removed by a manual process. Those positive reviews that merchants are not happy to see disappear are removed automatically by an algorithm.

2/4

.@seosavvyagent.com - The cases I've seen have all been complaints: merchants who removed a "bad" review and were unhappy to see it returning. I haven't seen anyone complaining about positive reviews returning!

1/4

If you've had fake reviews removed from your Business Profile and now see them returning—sometimes several years later—Google just acknowledged that this is a bug.

support.google.com/business/thr...

Schools with a poor rating were stuck with no way to improve.

Now reviews are gone.

Good for schools stuck with a poor rating for the last several years.

Bad for private/for-profit schools that could use reviews to help support their businesses. (h/t @bubblesup.bsky.social )

3/3

Roughly 6 years ago, Google disabled the option for some types of schools to get new reviews. This restriction was imposed in several countries.

Old reviews remained visible.

This was Google's response to a wave of nonsense reviews on school profiles.

2/3

Google no longer shows reviews on the Business Profiles of some types of schools in the UK.

1/3

In my experience, the OLD process never worked as described.

The "owner conflict" dialogue never appeared.

To complete the process, I used this "unofficial" solution: Contact Google support.

The official NEW process:
Contact Google support.

Reference: support.google.com/business/ans...

2/2

Google has overhauled the process for requesting ownership of a service area business.

OLD process:
1.) Create a service area profile identical to the one you wanted to claim
2.) Verify it
3.) Wait for an "owner conflict" dialogue to appear with a "Request access" button

1/2

support.google.com/maps/contact...
This new form is interesting. I’m curious to see what happens when a business is reported for having pressured a customer to leave a review.

This applies to the grey market cannabis delivery services that are all over the map in Ontario.

Any other examples?

Businesses associated with products or services that require the customer to be a certain minimum age, like alcohol, cannabis, or weapons, aren’t permitted as service-area businesses without a storefront.

Google actually uses the phrase "Businesses associated with..." not the specific term "selling", so this new requirement can be applied broadly/loosely.

2/3

A significant change to Google's Business Profile Guidelines!

Businesses selling products/services with minimum age requirements (e.g. alcohol, cannabis) MUST have a storefront.

No more restricted product SABs.

1/3