There are seven different types of negative reviews that Google will remove from a business listing. To become more familiar with what reviews can and cannot stay live, look into Google’s review guidelines for more information.

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Accusations that are extremely outlandish and contradictory will be removed by Google.

Example: A reviewer decides to leave an illegal and outlandish review of a business. The person leaving the review claims that the management would publicly do drugs and be belligerent towards employees. There is no proof behind this untrue accusation and the language used is very outlandish, so the review is eventually removed.

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If a reviewer’s history of negative reviews seems to be linked together in an unlikely way, the reviews will very likely be removed.

Example: One user leaves five different negative one-star reviews for every hospital in their respective city within the same week. It is extremely unlikely that the user went to all of these hospitals in a short amount of time for treatment, so Google will find them not to be legitimate and delete them.

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If a business was recently the subject of a viral scandal or controversy, they may find many reviews for their business from people who are not actual customers.

Example: A secondary school in an open-carry state decides to publicly announce that firearms will not be allowed on the premises. The news article detailing the decision goes viral, and advocates of open-carry are angry. As a result, they Google the school’s name and leave reviews that are negative despite never visiting the school. Google will remove these since they are a result of mob mentality and are illegitimate.

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It’s natural for employees who have been fired or quit to be disgruntled about their experience working for a business. However, leaving negative reviews of the business for their experience as an employee, not a customer, is against Google’s review guidelines and will be removed.

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If a business has multiple locations, especially if those locations are nationwide, it is very unlikely for one person to visit all of those locations. If a single user has left reviews for every location of a franchise, they are likely fake and will be removed.

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Sometimes an individual will leave multiple negative reviews with different accounts, or they may ask their friends to post negative reviews for them. This is also against Google’s policy and the suspicious comments will be removed for illegitimacy.

Example: A man gets a haircut he doesn’t like from a barbershop. He makes multiple accounts and leaves ten one-star reviews on the shop’s Google listing. These will be removed since they were all posted within the same day under suspicious names.

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If a user leaves a very negative review for one business, and then immediately leaves an ecstatically positive review for your major competitor, there is a good chance that the reviews are fake and possibly from the competitor themselves. These will be removed.