Google My Business Removal
Misleading reviews on Google My Business can damage your reputation before customers ever reach you.
Why Removing Harmful Google My Business Content Is Necessary
While Google reviews are intended to reflect genuine customer experiences, in practice, the system is often abused. Individuals with personal grievances, whether or not they’ve ever actually used your service, can post damaging reviews without needing to verify their identity or relationship with your business.
This opens the door to exaggerated claims, misleading accusations, and outright falsehoods. Because Google prioritizes open access, business owners have limited options to verify these reviews or provide meaningful responses, especially when reviewers remain anonymous.
Even worse, bad actors or competitors can manipulate the system by using fake accounts or encouraging others to flood your business with negative reviews, unfairly harming your reputation.
That’s why removing false, fake, or abusive reviews is critical, not just to protect your brand image, but to ensure potential customers get a fair and accurate picture of your business.
The Damaging Impact of Harmful Google Reviews
A single negative review on your Google Business Profile can have a long-lasting impact on your brand’s credibility. Whether it’s fake, exaggerated, or intentionally malicious, such reviews can discourage potential customers, lower trust, and even affect your search rankings.
Unlike private feedback, Google reviews are public and highly visible. Even one-star ratings or misleading comments—especially when left unchecked—can shape the way people perceive your business before they ever contact you.
That’s why it’s crucial to monitor, manage, and remove harmful content from your Google profile—so your business is judged fairly, not falsely.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are you permanently removing the content, or just hiding it?
In the case of online reviews, our services are designed to achieve complete and permanent removal of the reviews from the platform. All of our content removal services will always prioritize total deletion of the content as the first strategy; if this cannot be achieved, then typically other options are still available to mitigate the negative impact of unwanted content.
How much does it cost to remove a review?
Our pricing ranges from $400 to $900, depending on the complexity and severity of the case.
What content can you remove?
Anything that can be put onto the internet, can theoretically be removed from the internet – so it is always best to at least let us take a look, since it costs nothing and comes at no risk to you. Most of our removals relate to user-generated content such as reviews, blog or forum postings, and malicious or unwanted images or videos.
What content can’t you remove?
Some content is extremely difficult to remove due to the organisations controlling the site that the content is published on. For example, news publications that believe their article to be accurate will fight tooth and nail to keep it up, under the argument of “freedom of speech”. Government sites and other official organisations are of course also unlikely to remove something unless it is clearly factually inaccurate and/or blatantly illegal. In general, if the content itself is completely fair and/or factually accurate, provided honestly by a real human, and without infringing any locally applicable laws (such as privacy, copyright, etc) then removal is always more difficult (but not impossible). Our particular focus is on removing content that is unfair or unwarranted, inaccurate or dishonest, fake, illegal, or targets your business or staff in a personal, harassing or bullying manner.
How do you remove content? Are you hacking into anything?
All removals are done in a completely legitimate manner, with the content being removed willingly by the publishing website or the host of the content. The full process depends on the nature of the content itself, and where it is posted. There is no “hacking” or other subterfuge involved. We do not “bribe” or offer incentives for the content to be removed. Most cases will involve us creating, submitting and managing a detailed application for the removal of the offending content by the publishing website. We liaise with most of these sites on a daily basis, and it is our experience from analyzing thousands of these applications that we have determined which process is likely to be successful for each type of content. Most removals require multiple submissions and ongoing correspondence with the website publisher.
Will you contact the person who left the review that I’m trying to have removed?
No, this is not part of our standard process and is typically unnecessary. If we do believe it will be necessary or helpful, we will always discuss this with you first and only move forward with your approval.
How much does it cost to remove negative content?
Pricing depends on what website the content is on, and in some cases the nature of the content itself. In all cases, you will only pay if we successfully remove the content. There is no cost, no risk and no commitment required to have us take a look at the content and give you a quote. Simply reach out and show us the content. We can typically provide a quote on the same day that you ask. We do offer discounts for removing multiple pieces of content.
How long does the content removal process take?
This varies depending on the publishing website and the nature of the content involved. In some cases, content removal can be as fast as 24-48 hours, but in more difficult cases it can take up to 60 days. The average removal time is 2-3 weeks and if we have not removed the content within 60 days, we will issue you a full refund. We’ll also keep you up-to-date on the progress of your content removal.
Does it matter if I’ve already tried removing the content myself and been unsuccessful?
In some cases this will make our job more difficult, as some website publishers will ignore all future correspondence if the first attempt at removal was not successful. However, in most cases we can still have content removed even if you were previously unsuccessful. Since we do not charge for unsuccessful removals, there is no risk in letting us take a shot at it even if you don’t think it is possible.
What if I’ve responded publicly to a review that I now want to have removed?
We often find that your response is treated as making the review appear either more legitimate, or already mitigated, thereby making the removal process more difficult. We may ask you to remove your response while the removal process is underway; you can save it somewhere and if for any reason the removal is unsuccessful, you can always add it back in again later.
What happens after the content is removed? Can it come back?
We continually monitor the status of the content, and inform you of the good news as soon as it is removed. Removal is permanent, and it is extremely rare for it to re-appear; if for any reason it does come back, the original agreement still applies and we will work to remove it again. Please note that some websites will temporarily remove the content while they evaluate whether to permanently remove it. This does not count as a “successful removal”, and we will inform you of these situations when they occur.
What happens if you haven’t removed the content within 60 days?
Throughout the removal process, we will keep you updated on the progress and our confidence level in having it be successful. If we have not removed the content within 60 days, we will offer you up to 3 options:
- If we believe that there is still a chance of success, we will inform you of the status and our intended strategy for continued attempts. You will then have the option of extending the time window to give us more time to implement that strategy.
- If we do not believe that outright removal is likely to succeed and our options to do so are exhausted, we may offer alternative options that help to mitigate the damage. In some cases these options are equally effective to complete removal, however in all cases these alternative strategies will be completely optional and…
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