Google Offers New Review Management Tool in 2021

Posted by Erin Meyer

Online reviews can be a wonderful complement to your business or they can be the bane of your existence if you happen to be the target of a misinformed or vengeful reviewer. Getting fraudulent or inappropriate reviews removed from a Google My Business page can be a complicated process, especially for an overburdened business manager with a lengthy to-do list.

Person looking at their phone on the street

On the consumer side, confidence in online reviews has significantly diminished over the past five years, due to the growing problem of “fake” reviews. In some cases, positive reviews may be considered biased because of incentives offered by the seller, or worse yet, five star reviews may actually be purchased from an unscrupulous third party.

A new review management tool launched by Google, which can be accessed here, is intended to improve review quality by helping business managers keep track of online reviews and review the status of removal requests. The tool allows users to look at recent reviews on their listings organized in one spot and also check on the status of reviews they have reported. This is a noteworthy development since previously there had been no simple way to see the status of review removal requests, which can take a long time to process.

So far, it seems the tool itself is getting mixed reviews. Localu.org reports that accounts with larger listings may not be able to use the tool, but for small businesses with fewer listings, it could be helpful. BrightLocal’s Jamie Pitman conducted an interesting case study with an actual client, which seems to demonstrate that some glitches may need to be worked out with the new tool.

Reputation management with tools like Google My Business is essential for strengthening your online marketing efforts, but it takes time to do it right. If you happen to be too busy running your business to devote time to your reputation management, give us a call! Upright has a proven track record of implementing successful reputation management strategies.

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