Home Forums Marketing For Auto Repair Shops Google reviews

  • Posted by Richard Zaagman on October 28, 2013 at 12:17 pm

    Ever since the migration from Google Maps to Google +, we’ve not been able to respond to reviews left for us on Google.

    This has been an ongoing issue, and Google themselves have not been able to resolve the problem.

    Have any of you been experiencing this as well?

    dougfentiman replied 8 years, 10 months ago 7 Members · 8 Replies
  • 8 Replies
  • Tom

    Member
    November 1, 2013 at 6:44 am

    It has been a while since I have worked with this…basically gave up. 

    We were able to post replies, but when checked a few days later they were gone. 
    Occurred repeatedly. 
  • Unknown Member

    Deleted User
    November 1, 2013 at 10:55 am

    We have had the same issue. It seems that the bad reviews always stay near the top forever. Any responses we post will disappear with no rhyme or reason. It is just the mighty Google doing whatever they want to do. We have not resolved it either. I talked with someone at Google places for business about the issue, and basically just got lip service. 

  • Richard Zaagman

    Member
    November 4, 2013 at 12:47 pm

    Hello, folks… Calvin here, Dick’s partner in crime. He asked me to
    post this update, which is an e-mail I *just* sent him. Cheers, CW

    “Following
    an almost 40 minute conversation with Christopher at Google (3rd person
    I spoke to on the same call), he was able to restore the review
    response function.

    That’s the good news.

    The not so great
    news is he couldn’t recover all our previous responses. At initial
    glance, it seems he could only retrieve those I left 12 months to 2
    years ago. If the review/response is greater than 2 years old, I have
    to go back and manually enter a response.

    I asked if there was
    any way Google could assure us the response capacity would not disappear
    again in the near/distant future, and regretfully I was told there’s no
    such promise.

    Regardless, this is progress. Checking into things further, so as to confirm how much repair/restoration is still necessary.”

  • jbrenn77

    Member
    November 4, 2013 at 6:23 pm

    I’ve had several go-rounds with a couple of the different review sites, including Google.  They change their algorithm very fast and it seems like all of them are leaning toward making SEM a much easier way for us to get business as opposed to reviews.  I won’t say I’ve given up on Google reviews, customers pay attention to internet reviews and we need good ones, but I don’t have the time to devote to correcting all the errors and dealing with all of the problems.  I’m now having someone manage my social media campaign as a standalone service, this is all she does for me, maybe she could get involved in managing this fiasco?  I don’t know, I’ll have to ask her. 

  • youronlinebusiness

    Member
    November 5, 2013 at 12:06 pm

    Google reviews are still the best reviews you can receive on the Internet. With all the changes Google makes there are some glitches but they want to make the system better. They are doing this by weeding out fake reviews and making people accountable because they have to use their real name. Just the fact that you can speak with someone at Google is a huge change for the better.

    I had an account that no one could find the login for and it had already been verified. This used to be a huge problem that could take months to fix and I did it in a 10 minute phone conversation with Google’s G+ Support.

    That being said here’s some tips: Don’t have your customers do their reviews on your computer. Google will track the IP address and the reviews could be removed.
    Respond to all reviews positive or negative but keep it short on the negative reviews and don’t carry on a conversation. Most customers won’t respond and your response will help to diffuse their negatyive review. Ask them to contact you as the business owner or manager.
    I like to send my clients an email that makes it easy for them to leave a review. I give them a link to the page my G+ Listing is on and not a direct link to the Write a Review page (Google tracks this activity and may remove this review). I find that 3 out of 10 people that agree to leave a review end up doing so if you want 10 reviews you will need to ask 30 people.
    Positive reviews will help build your business.
    Google would prefer that reviews be done organically but unless its a bad review it is not easy to get reviews in the auto service industry.
    Don’t give up on Google, it is still your best chance to get to page one of a Google search for your keywords and people want to see and will read reviews.
    If you haven’t claimed, verified and optimized your G+ Local listing do it now and get some reviews, they will help your ranking.
    Another tip, if you don’t know what a Google Hangout is read up on it. Its the fastest way to get to page one for a search if its done properly and I’m talking in minutes/hours not days or months.
  • mylesj

    Member
    November 5, 2013 at 12:11 pm

    “he couldn’t recover all our previous responses” – guys, understand that postings at Google are NOT your responses, they are Google’s responses. They have no liability for anything that is wrong or disappears. You want it free, Google wants to sell aggregated data to Power and Polk and many others. That is the deal you make using Google services. Polk sold for $1.4Billion this year mainly for the value of the data that has been aggregated by CarFax from management systems, insurers and on-line sources. The true cost of free services like VIN decoders and Google services is covered by the value of your information

  • Richard Zaagman

    Member
    November 11, 2013 at 7:48 am

    Thank you.

  • dougfentiman

    Member
    June 2, 2015 at 4:45 pm

    Now that Google has moved almost everything to Google Plus it has made fixing bugs much easier. Once you have verified your ownership of a page they will help you solve problems. Getting issues corrected is in their interests also. As said by others there is great value in what Google is providing for “free” and we just have to work within those limitations.

    Biggest problem I see when doing Google page optimization work are duplicate pages for same business and businesses that either copy and post reviews, or have customers post reviews from computers in their shop. Bad, bad, bad. If you mess with reviews too much Google will just hide all your reviews when their SPAM flags are triggered.

    Reviews are very important for supporting your online reputation and gives a strong SEO signal for your website and local search results.

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