How to delete a negative or bad Google Review? Or, what to do if you cannot delete it? by Najam Ahmed, Digital Marketing Strategist | SEO International, Dubai

I know how important it is to have more positive Google reviews for your business. They help you build trust and improve your local ranking in Google search results.

Frankly speaking, it is NOT that easy to remove a bad review; however, you can flag a fake, or spam review as inappropriate that has been posted by one of your competitors. In this way, you’re reporting Google that it is not an appropriate review – and appealing Google to remove it.

So, the next question is how to handle negative reviews, if we cannot remove them. I have 6 suggestions for you:

1. Respond quickly to all your reviews – especially the bad ones. If someone leaves a good review – reply with a thank you note.
2. If a customer is not happy with your product or service, it doesn’t mean that your business is at fault. Opinions are opinions, and the best thing you can do is to answer respectfully.
3. If you think that the bad reviewer is one of your competitors, and he is leaving a fake review, be polite to him and ask for some more information to prove (the public) that he’s wrong. For example, a person (who did not actually attend my classes) left a 1-star review about my courses, I replied to him politely and asked about the course batch, dates, and the venue – and there was no response from him.
4. If you think the customer who has left a bad review – is still facing a problem that is not yet solved after using your product/service – then try solving the customer’s problem – and once he’s satisfied – ask him politely (in person, or by phone or email) to remove the bad reviews.
5. Don’t assume that all your bad reviews are wrong – consider working on legitimate negative reviews – and try improving the quality of your product or service based on negative feedback.
6. Keep working to acquire more positive reviews from your happy customers – in this way you will be able to manage an overall better rating.
7. Bonus Tip – Future customers are reading your reviews. Download 20 prompts to respond to your customers’ reviews by clicking this link: https://offers.hubspot.com/review-response-templates