Google My Business Reviews

by ShirleyLaneFarm

Google spends too much time trying to make people happy, instead of publishing facts. My business is a 140 yr farm. We don’t have to advertise, but we have to be on the internet just because some business use it to verify you now. But it seems Google Business can’t follow their own terms. A seasonal business has to post signage. We aren’t seasonal (in fact we don’t get any days off). Yet they required us to post a store front photo. I told them it’s a farm. I sent them a photo of the office bldg. they didn’t like it. The issue wasn’t my store front. It’s that google miscalculated our road, and we are 600 ft from the current MAPS inaccurate road. EARTH has it correctly. I printed this out (to correct for everyone’s benefit) and now my business has been SUSPENDED. I’m not whining. I’m providing feedback that google business only works for in the box retail store fronts. Not any business, even though I’m a rural area, we NEED business exposure. Doesn’t matter I’m accredited by BBB, the state SOS, area chamber of commerce..who know me and that we are a physical business. So I will buy a sign, put it on my building JUST FOR GOOGLE. The bldg is 600 feet from entrance. Extremely common on farms. No one will see the sign. Except a google (not even street view can). Apparently they are “right” even though it cheaply shows no street view!

by 123tbmb

My business was not receiving the verification post cards after changing to a new website on my already verified account, and now there are no other verification methods left. Many attempts at contacting a human resulted in an “appointment” for a google meets live video to verify the business. They DEFINITELY no call-no showed and left me hanging. The next set of multiple attempts and emails trying to contact a human actually produced a phone call. Whole bunch of nothing was done, no apology for the missed appointment that they didn’t follow through with, and now almost 6 months into this stupidity I’m left with leaving a bad review here. My patience is gone. Google is costing me clients. Because here’s the fun little extra: my new website, store hours, and booking site WON’T UPDATE ON MY GOOGLE BUSINESS PAGE since I’m not verified. Except they didn’t successfully send the post cards that were required to verify my business (in all honesty it’s a re-verification since I attempted to change info) Shame on you, Google. Small business owners need an easier way to verify instead of you holding their online presence for ransom while you do absolutely nothing to help solve the problems you created. 0/10 DO NOT RECOMMEND

by DocNDoc

Out of all of the apps by google, this is by far the worst. I motivate my clients, customers to leave reviews which is supporting the google reviews/ google business app. Right? Why not support me as a business owner? I have tried to correct two very simple mistakes related to my business and I finally gave up when I couldn’t get anyone on the phone and I received nonsense for email replies! Two very simple things-1-correcting my business LOCATION on the map so that my customers are not turned around on another side of the shopping center. 2- MY BUSINESS IS A “duplicate listing” and I don’t know if I have lost reviews because of this. If I only operate on word of mouth and my reviews are all on google, I would love to fix this issue. But it took so long that I stopped wasting my precious time!! I’m so dissatisfied and disappointed. Also, to send me a post card or an email with offers from google to list my business is never going to happen! If you can’t fix this, why would I want to support a marketing portion of your business? It is sad that it’s all about the marketing but I rather have you fix the free listings before you ask me for money. Oh and or have the marketing team have access to help business owners before trying to collect money from them.

by Callieci65

I too am a small business owner, and as a new small business owner, I do welcome each and every person opinion of my business that have actually frequent my business. I think it does a disservice to small business when google has everyday people called Local Guides, that are suppose to be ethical and have a honest moral obligation to post a review on a business they walk into. That is not the case. They are google guides that will actually single a business out that really may have honest reviews from actually clients, and post a one star, although they have never called the business or walked in the door or even have a service there. The sad part is they could care less about the damage that they do to a small business because of the false review. It’s bad enough that you compete with other competitors, but to out and out lie is horrible and Google should be ashamed of themselves! They should hold each and every Local Guide to an honest standard. They should never allow someone to place a negative review or negative star rating on a business they’ve never even been too. With that said I really hope this helps someone, and I really hope businesses start to try their best to hold Google accountable.

by Steven Sussman

My business has been open and operating for over ten years. All I Did was move my business from one state to another. I have been trying to establish and reverify my business for over a month now and all google keeps doing is passing me around to different business specialists essentially promising me that the issue will be resolved. And it still hasn’t been, and this is an issue because I’m missing out on potential business opportunities. I’m always been contacted by somebody different and nobody seems to ever have a thorough understanding of my problem, although they all assured me that they have a well documented case of my file. I’m going into week five of trying to do this business verification and it is proving to be a real thorn in my side. I will keep using Google as it is essential to business but I think they have really got to reprioritize their efforts. Oh, and GoogleMyBusiness really isn’t that useful at all. You’re much better off using a laptop. GoogleMyBusiness is just to put up media and pictures and a quick reviews and things like that. But GoogleMyBusiness is actually pretty useless

by Brent Yarbrough

No live customer support, only through email. My business was flagged for “quality” reasons followed bye an explanation that it may not comply with Google my business guidelines. I’ve read over them I have watched the video and everything complies I have not even had to change anything. As far as I can tell it’s all done right. When contacting Google my business by filling out a form and submitting it. I receive an email with the requirements of what I must provide in order to prove that the business belongs to me. I submitted an LLC and my business is a service area business so I do not have a business address or storefront. This should not cause a problem as according to Google my business all you have to do is comply with the guidelines. Steel I am not getting an answer or reason or help in order to resolve this issue of my business being suspended. If I could talk to a live person that could walk me through each and every step together we can get it done. There is no reason why my business should not be allowed to be reinstated. It should not have been flagged in the first place.

by Mr. & Mrs. Orr Bailbonds

I have contacted Google numerous times trying to get “customer” photos removed from my business page! I have reported the pictures and flagged them nearly 50 times over the last year! These pictures do not reflect my business and are extremely embarrassing to be listed on my business page. I run a Bailbonds company and pictures of someone’s trashy disgusting living room, a bedroom that is red and sexual in theme and someone’s toolbox in their garage DO NOT relate to my business at all! It just blows my mind that google has yet to remove these images after I have made numerous attempts online and over the phone to have them removed over the past year! As a verified business owner of my google listing I should have 1000% ability to delete ANY picture within seconds from my business listing but that is not an option! The only option is to “flag” these pictures and wait for someone at google to remove them! Google has failed my business! Google should be ashamed that they treat business owners like this! GOOGLE- Remove these pictures and I will consider giving a better rating and removing this review!

by The Real Meta

My business is useless if your not putting at least a couple hundred budget to Ad words which even if your doing that doesn’t help when bigger (not better) business can easily afford a lot more and can find ways to manipulate SEO. Which I guess is the America way so whatever. I have a small business and work from home do displaying my address wasn’t in my best interest well you won’t ever show on front page of google if you don’t show an address. Reluctantly I made an edit to show my address, which in turn crippled my page and made me have to verify my address again. Being a small business means google has to send a post card to my house, even though they send me google flyers to my address and I have never changed it on file. I was told not being verified wouldn’t effect
Me showing up but it’s not true so all the money I spent on google ads is down the drain and my page is even showing up at all. On top of that I may go up to 14 days with a crippled account? This is soooo stupid and redundant, calling into google support is of no help you get useless “generic” call center reps and it just a cluster F.

by Baletina19

This has been an extremely frustrating “business” endeavor. Google maps lets some yahoo post a city incorrectly and over a two month period does nothing to correct it. ( in spite of many correspondence and phone calls that go no where). This affects my business because searches for my area are showing up 45 miles away...without my business showing up. SERIOUS ISSuE. So I am forced to pin my business at the cost of google my business fees to try to counter the incorrect pinning of a non existent city in the wrong google map. This google my business app needs help on multiple levels but especially the lack of support - photos do not show up to put on the site - random folks who claim to be customers can Post their bad photos that are not representative of my biz- and there isn’t much intuitive on the apps w strange layers and redundancies that make little sense. I think it’s some google conspiracy to pump up their finsnces as if these greedy folks need more. Disappointed because I get no call backs or emails for months now in spite of multiple hours /days spent on this grrrrrrr

by Firstkissloser

Google was showing me in Kansas-I live and work in Oregon-never even been to Kansas.
I’m a photographer, I don’t want my personal address posted because I don’t have people come to my home, I meet them at a location, this being said I have had my account suspended because I was trying to change the address back to Oregon! When I type in “photographers near me” I should be on the list and all Google reps could say was that it was an optimization issue and it was because I basically wasn’t “popular enough” to get on the list. Wrong. I WAS there before, and when I look for “photographers near Lawrence Kansas”, My business shows up!
I finally decided to put my home address to clear up this whole issue, even though it makes me uncomfortable to do that, and my account got suspended AGAIN and they have not fixed it after almost a month.
It is extremely frustrating to have to go through all this to be able to promote my business. There has got to be an easier way. And Google should be trying to be more helpful to all the small business owners like me and many others instead of giving us the runaround.

by RBamberg

GoogleMyBusiness is great, but getting verified on Google My Business for my branch office in Tampa, FL was a huge waste of time, causing my branch to lose exposure and revenues. After not receiving the post card in the mail that Google sends to verify your location, I requested a second card. After weeks, we never received. I was then told my next option was to supply interior and exterior photos of the office. So I did exactly that, supplying approximately 10 photos, yet was denied again. I was then told I had to do a video conference with Google. After installing Google Hangouts, I provided the time frame my business was open for the video conference. I specifically provided the time frame, including the time zone, yet the Google rep called when we were closed. This happened (3) times before they finally called during the provided 8 hr. time frame we were open. This process took several months which we lost possible revenues from lost exposure. Very disappointed in the amount of time and the hoops we had to jump through to get our real office verified, yet I have similar competitors who have fake listings, pretending to have real offices by using private mailboxes to disguise and mislead the general public into thinking they are real offices. For this, you get one star. I hope nobody else has to go through this experience because it was a huge slap in the face and waste of time!

by Office-Work-2020

It’s great to be able to have control over the management of opening hours... posting images... and other business info. But the problem is there are people who write fake reviews. Whether with intent to harm your business or simply to earn free points on google & get the title of “local guide / expert”. We’ve had problems with a couple of the latter. We’ve tried numerous times to report them as having “conflicts of interest”, but Google is non responsive. It’s just unfair. We work very hard to satisfy our real customers and build a reputation. We do not need a non customer to berate our service and be empowered and rewarded by Google. Just look at their other reviews and you’ll know they’re just collecting points! For example, if they’ve reviewed 14 KFC branches & 10 McDonalds in 1 city, then they go and review the Ritz Hotel, you know there’s something very wrong. Also, if they’re reviewing a restaurant or bakery and have no food or invoice or interior photos, then chances are the reviews are fake.

by Jennifercmansour

It’s great all in all, but the following is necessary:
1. GoogleMyBusiness from the home page always gives me the notification icon, but there isn’t anything inside GoogleMyBusiness that I need to check
2. Owners need to have some control over photos. For example, if we would like to delete our own photos which we’ve uploaded
3. Google tends to choose our cover photo based on most photo views even though Google asks us to choose a cover photo. The photo that has overridden what I chose totally gives a different impression of what our restaurant really is like (it was a private event) and I don’t like that. It isn’t what leads should see so Google is actually hurting us rather than helping in this regard.
4. I’d love for reviewers to be notified of when we reply to a review, and for them to have the ability to reply again. Some feedback needs further discussion. Currently, I have to ask reviewers to write us back by email to continue the discussion - which is time consuming. I understand that Google Reviews were not meant to play the same role Yelp reviews do, but in this generation it needs to play that role too.

by Restinsuredllcaz

Obviously an important part to any business. GoogleMyBusiness is pretty good overall but has some flaws. I wish a link would produce a picture associated with it like LinkedIn and other social media apps. With GoogleMyBusiness you have to add a link and a separate pic. The whole posting process seems a bit more clunky than other social media apps. Also, when I click on GoogleMyBusiness it says review my page for updates. There is a submit button at the very bottom. It has never worked on my iPhone 10 or 12. If it tells me to add a cover photo, it never seems to work. If it does, no idea of what it will look like. There is very little feedback from Google. Also, there is absolutely no customer service from Google unless it’s possibly revenue based from Google Ads. While I don’t have any bad reviews, I see other good businesses get a 1 and clearly that person has never done business with them. Try to get that removed or talk to a human at Google and it won’t happen. I’d bet a $100 that they don’t even look at these reviews.

by Wv SWAT VW

GoogleMyBusiness overall is a nice tool to use when checking in on how your business is doing online. Able to review your Views, Searches, and overall Activity for each of your businesses.

A nice feature I like is the ability to respond to questions and reviews right away. However, this feature isn’t working very well. When I go to respond to a review, the text box function freezes when I try to highlight a word or go back to a prior sentence for editing. I am forced to write my review response in the Notes App and copy/paste it in. This is especially annoying after I’ve written almost all of my response and after it freezes, I can’t even highlight what I had already written. The only way I can get GoogleMyBusiness to start working is for me to force close GoogleMyBusiness and reopen.

Other than that, GoogleMyBusiness is pretty nice! I can upload photos and business updates all from the same app. Highly recommended if you own a business and want to own your online presence.

by Frustrated Law Girl

GoogleMyBusiness is pretty good. I can post without logging in. I can check stats though they aren’t up to the minute. But, I vehemently object to not being able to delete reviews (even suspiciously good ones). Some people are just mean with no valid reason except a desire to tank my small business which can’t compete well with my “perfect” competitors as it is. Nobody is perfect - especially in my profession but I should be able to block and delete what I know isn’t a valid review - i.e., one star and no comment just because I refused to work for free for someone being nasty to me and because I can’t work for free. I had to do a reply people may never read then solicit reviews from clients I know are satisfied but whose reviews may be discounted because of the timing making them look fake. I once had a client down rate me on Facebook after he couldn’t or wouldn’t pay me but I was able to delete it and block him. Business is hard enough with mean people and others looking for freebies at my expense.

by BillyMillerOnBrockRoad

I have seen some mixed reviews here, and I can honestly say, as a small business owner, who uses GoogleMyBusiness daily, I can’t find anything to complain about at all so far. GoogleMyBusiness does everything exactly as I anticipated it would, and because it is a product of Google, I expected it to be simple enough to set up and use my business account, and update my business information when I need to, and every time I open it up on my IPhone to make any changes, it does exactly what I expect it to do. So for those of you who are experiencing difficulties, perhaps it is operator error, connection problems, or the device you are using. I realize that nothing is perfect in life, and I don’t expect perfection from anyone because nobody is perfect, but I do know that GoogleMyBusiness has worked perfectly on my devices when I needed it to. Thank you to the “My Business” app team for providing a great FREE way to promote my business all over the internet. Yes, it’s FREE!

by TommyTrentonJr

I have been using Google My Business for two years now. I will say that its been more then 65 percent of my businesses discovery!!! People find us perfectly on google. I wont go into detail as to what I love about it. Ill just say I love everything about it except the fact I can not block and email or a user from be able to see my business online. I have a customer who is refusing to pay and has a million excuses and when they find out there will be legal action taken I am afraid they will bash us with ridiculously bad reviews. So now I am hesitant about taking legal action. Meaning that because I can not ban them from my google business listing it is costing me the amount of money I am owed by that customer. I can not afford bad reviews being that Its a new business with only 24 perfect reviews. Anyways enough rant! Google my business is essential period!

by MichaelSublime

Yes GoogleMyBusiness itself is awesome if you’re a small or even large business owner with an online presence through Google My Business. You are able to do everything you can from the desktop while being on the go, you can upload pictures or change biz info and make posts which are very useful along with getting notifications if a customer leaves a review etc it’s all right there at your fingertips. If you’re looking to get verified and have problems with that it has nothing to do with GoogleMyBusiness itself as I have seen others give a negative rating because of this when it play absolutely no role in the process whatsoever. Some things I would like to see in the future are the ability to message customers with some type of instant messaging straight from our GMB listings and GoogleMyBusiness as most customers would rather contact through text or messaging. That would be sick!

by Kobican Solutions

It’s been amazing how many mobile notary calls and fingerprinting appointments I’ve had in the Charlotte and Concord areas of North Carolina since we begun using google my business. The exposure has really helped our business especially in the slow season. Only issue I have is my customers complain about the hassle of dropping reviews.. the link does not take them directly to drop a review instead it lands them on my google page which can be confusing when they just need to give a review, sometimes they have to call back for me to direct them to click the review button to give stars and also tap below to write a post. This can be discouraging for new clients unfamiliar with google reviews and can inherently cost small businesses the much needed reviews to boost their online presence. It would be awesome if you guys can fix that

by Gizzarelli

I’m not sure who the developers or managers are at Google, but I’ve tried several products on Google with no results. The apps and websites they have don’t function correctly. One of my businesses on Google My Business has been suspended for over a year. There is nothing wrong with it. I contacted Google a hundred times via phone, email, chat, and Twitter. No one can fix my business page or tell me what’s wrong with it. The business page has 15 5 star reviews on it. Furthermore, my businesses don’t show up in searches unless you search specifically for my business name. However, many other business pages show up with minimal effort. I strongly feel that someone at Google is suppressing my business on purpose. I once tried expanding my business by creating locations for other cities. Google wouldn’t allow me to grow or expand my business. Customer Support are a bunch of people from India who barely speak English. I have no faith in a product that earns billions of dollars in my country, but can’t employ people from my country. There is not enough transparency. If there’s something wrong with my business information, it needs to be fixed immediately, not over the course of a year. Blatant disregard for small business and the challenges of operating a small business. Because of all these issues and issues with other Google products, I strongly dislike Google as a company. I think they are corrupt, dishonest, and childish at times.

by Haha901

Out of all of the apps by google, this is by far the worst. I motivate my clients, customers to leave reviews which is supporting the google reviews/ google business app. Right? Why not support me as a business owner? I have tried to correct two very simple mistakes related to my business and I finally gave up when I couldn’t get anyone on the phone and I received nonsense for email replies! Two very simple things-1-correcting my business LOCATION on the map so that my customers are not turned around on another side of the shopping center. 2- MY BUSINESS IS A “duplicate listing” and I don’t know if I have lost reviews because of this. If I only operate on word of mouth and my reviews are all on google, I would love to fix this issue. But it took so long that I stopped wasting my precious time!! I’m so dissatisfied and disappointed. Also, to send me a post card or an email with offers from google to list my business is never going to happen! If you can’t fix this, why would I want to support a marketing portion of your business? It is sad that it’s all about the marketing but I rather have you fix the free listings before you ask me for money. Oh and or have the marketing team have access to help business owners before trying to collect money from them.

by KtJt

While GoogleMyBusiness is mostly intuitive and easy to use. It’s highly misleading. They encourage you to post photos often and that is exactly what I do as I am in the beauty business. Specifically cosmetic tattoo, my business heavily relies on before and after pics. It’s literally what establishes that first level of trust between me and a prospective client. I have uploaded over 40 images yet only my first 7 show. I have even tried to delete them as they are no longer a great impression of the level of work I have grown to yet they still populate. Even the thumbnail that shows when I send a review link isn’t at all what I would want. I should have full control over the image of my business. I’ve called and after jumping through a thousand insane hoops to prove I was indeed the business owner I was emailed a canned statement saying this is a known issue with no ETA for resolution! Like not even a ballpark! How cN a company the size of Google be ok with that as a response?! This literally impacts my business revenue!

by 1950WG

We have been in business for 5 years and the insights provided by google has taught me a lot. GoogleMyBusiness is a must for any small business or start up. You can quickly make updates to the information your potential or existing customers need to make informed decisions. The ability to post “on the go” is a life saver. We all know how easy it is for a malicious person to wreak havoc on your small business but you can respond and set the record straight. I do agree, there should be some form or review process that the owner can appeal to. All in all, you get the good with the bad but GoogleMyBusiness itself is a must have. Don’t hesitate when opening your business claim your business immediately and make sure the you control what is being displayed about your business.

by Envious187$$

Love GoogleMyBusiness , but in the technological era we live in, and as a small business owner, there should be a way for Google to filter out and delete negative reviews from people who have never stepped foot in our business, or interacted with anyone in the business. It’s sad that I read reviews about other local businesses and the review flat out states, “I’ve never been to this place, but as a local guide Google keeps asking me to leave a review”. That’s not what a rating system is for, nor does it help a business improve. If a customer says they had a 1 Star experience, but leaves no explanation why, and the business responds to the review apologizing and asking them to elaborate with what, when, where, why they gave a 1 star review so we can fix the issue, and they don’t respond, that review should be flagged and bagged.