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Video Summary
According to research, 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business, so having a strong online presence is an absolute must. Of course, to encourage your customers to give quality, impactful reviews, you must give them a positive experience with your business.
But sometimes, these great reviews take a while to show up on your Google Business Profile. Most customer reviews are posted almost instantly, or maybe within 2 to 3 hours. However, there are some instances where it can take 2 to 7 business days before a review gets published, and some reviews never show up.
There are several reasons why Google may take longer than usual to publish your reviews. Continue watching to know more…
Video Transcript
Hello, Jeffrey Kirk here…
Here’s a question I get a lot. “Someone gave me a Google review. Why isn’t it showing up?” Or sometimes they’ll ask me “how long does it take for new reviews to appear?”.
Since you’re watching this video, I assume you have a similar question, so I’m going to answer these for you today.
Before I dig in, I would like to make a quick request. Please subscribe to my channel and click the little bell so you get notified when my next video comes out. And if you like this video, be sure to click the like button. Doing these things helps me out too.
As a bonus for you, go to upatdawn.biz/3steps after watching this video. I’ve got a free report you can use to make sure your Google reviews are as effective as possible.
Okay, now to the question…
“How long does it take for Google reviews to appear?”
Waiting for your reviews to appear online can be quite frustrating, especially if you are just getting started building your online reputation. You’d like them to appear instantly, right? Especially if they’re good reviews!
According to research, 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business, so having a strong online presence is an absolute must. And by having a strong online presence, more prospects find your business and convert to potential customers, so you sell more.
Of course, to encourage your customers to give quality, impactful reviews, you must give them a positive experience with your business. That way you make it easy for them to be able to say good things about your business. But sometimes, these great reviews take a while to show up on your Google Business Profile.
Most customer reviews are posted almost instantly, or maybe within 2 to 3 hours. However, there are some instances where it can take 2 to 7 business days before a review gets published, and some reviews never show up. There are several reasons why Google may take longer than usual to publish your reviews. And the reasons might lie with Google, or your business profile, or the content of the review itself.
Google’s Criteria and the Moderators
First, let’s consider Google. Google has defined community guidelines and algorithms to avoid violations and ensure a safe platform for all users. Before any review is posted online, it must first pass Google’s criteria and the moderators.
The first moderator is artificial intelligence. If the AI says everything is squeaky clean, the review might post quickly. But if anything can be questioned, then a human review is necessary. And you can imagine things slow down quite a bit when a person has to make sure a particular review is compliant with Google’s policies!
Aside from this, it’s also possible that Google is having technical issues or they’re implementing some system updates which could also cause delays. There can also be large-scale events that interrupt review processing. For example, reviews were stuck for months during the first part of the pandemic.
If any of these things happen, then your only option is to wait. Hopefully the review will show up within a week or so. But if Google concludes the review is a violation of some kind, then the review will never appear.
Google Business Profile
Second, let’s look at your Google Business Profile as a potential problem. Google gives your customers the ability to provide reviews and ratings when they visit your online profile. But before they can do this, you need a complete and accurate Google Business Profile.
I wouldn’t be so concerned about a single review, but if you are missing several that you know would be legitimate, then it’s possible there are problems with your profile. These problems prevent the reviews from being published. Perhaps you have not claimed and verified your Google Business Profile. Or, the opposite problem is often worse, if you have a duplicate profile, that may cause confusion for your clients and for Google.
If Google knows a profile is a duplicate, it’s not going to show it, so that’s not the worst case scenario. But if there are two profiles representing your business that are not quite alike, they may not register as duplicates and so they both exist. And you’re expecting a review to show up on one of them, and your client left a review on the other.
So it’s good to search for your business with misspellings, or perhaps at an old address. You should do this in the main Google search and also within Google Maps. And make sure you have claimed and fully optimized your profile by following Google’s guidelines so that you avoid any more problems with your listings.
I have separate videos explaining how to get and optimize your profile if you need help with any of these things.
Content of the Review
And third, there could be issues with the content of the review itself. Actually, the content of the review is related to the first thing I mentioned earlier in the video.
Any review that violates Google’s community guidelines or their policies will be permanently rejected and removed from your listings. Some common issues include reviews that contain links, or that contain profanity, or there’s personal information, or it’s a sign of harassment.
Google also removes fake reviews or paid reviews. Buying reviews or paying someone to post a review for you is a violation of Google’s policy. Also, if the review uses offensive language, offers content that promotes gambling, or triggers any other restricted category, it is deleted immediately.
Reviews from your employees or former employees should also be rejected because these are conflicts of interest. Of course, it’s sometimes difficult for Google to detect this particular situation. But since it is a violation, never ask an employee to leave a review for your business or a competing business.
So, how can you make sure your online reviews get approved and show up as fast as they possibly can?
Well, I said it before, give your real customers a positive experience with your business and then encourage them to leave a review for you. Make it a worthwhile experience so that giving a 5‑star review will not be hard for them. But keep in mind that not everyone will take the time or jump through the hoops to leave you a review. So you ought to make the process easy or at least as easy as possible for your customers.
With a really good system in place, you can get many high-quality reviews that drive more and more new clients to your business. I offer a free training webinar that looks at the importance of reviews from several different angles and how to get them in a way that has the biggest impact on your business.
For anyone who goes through the training, I offer a system which I will let you try for free. You’ll see how the right system makes a huge difference for your business. But there are some steps you ought to take before that training so that you get started the right way. Earlier I mentioned the bonus I’m giving you today. Here’s that link again… It’s upatdawn.biz/3steps. It’s free and the link is posted here.
After you get this report, look for the invitation to the training webinar. You’ll definitely want to do this before your competitors do!
Your business deserves to be seen online, and I will help you get there. Thanks for watching and have a great day!
