The short answer
Reviews from people reacting to a post, rather than a visit, are not based on a real experience, which Google's policy does not allow. Reviews that only talk about the post or the news are off topic. Save them, report each one under the policy it breaks, answer the post on the platform where it spread, and keep your Google replies short and identical.
Why the reviews follow the post
Your Google listing is the easiest place for a stranger to act on a feeling about you. It takes one tap from a search. When a post spreads, some readers leave a rating as a protest, some copy what others wrote, and some threads tell people to do it. None of them needs to have visited.
The timing tracks the post, not your business. Reviews tend to come in bursts each time the post is shared by a large account, picked up by a news site or revived in a thread. A quiet day does not mean it is over.
Google says its systems check reviews before they are published and look for unusual spikes in activity. Its help pages also say it can turn off reviews for some profiles to protect business owners. You cannot count on either happening, so plan as if every review will stay until reported.
What Google's rules say about these reviews
- Content not based on a real experience at the location is not allowed.
- Unusual volumes or patterns of reviews aimed at a rating count as fake engagement.
- The same text posted from several accounts is repetitive content.
- Content posted to harass a person or business is not allowed.
These rules hold whatever the post said and whether or not it was fair. A review has to be about an experience at your location. Opinions about the owner's views, a staff member in a video, or how the business handled a story online, with no visit, fall outside that.
See which of your reviews break a rule.
The check reads every low review on your listing and labels it. Free, and nothing is filed until you pick.
Separate the crowd from your customers
Some real customers will also post, now that they have seen the story. A review that describes their own visit, even an angry one, breaks no rule and stays. Reviews that talk only about the video, the article or the owner's views, with no visit, are the ones to report. Read the reviewer profiles too: a crowd from a viral post usually has reviews in other cities and nothing near you.
Some reviewers claim a visit to make the review stick: a short line about rude staff or a dirty room, posted the same hour the post went up, from an account in another state. These are the hardest to sort. Compare the review date with the post date and the reviewer's location.
Answer the post where it lives
If you want to respond to the story itself, do it once, on the platform where it spread, and in your own words. Do not argue the story in your Google replies. A Google reply is for the next customer, so keep it to one short line, the same under every review with no visit behind it. The guide on replying during a review attack has wording you can copy.
If the story is about a real mistake, say so briefly and say what you changed. If it is false, state the facts once, without naming the person who posted it. Then stop. Every new statement gives the story another day. Do not ask your own followers to post five star reviews in reply. That turns one wave into two, and the second one breaks Google's rules on your side.
Your first days
- 1
Save the post and the listing
Screenshot the post with its date, plus your rating and review count before and during the wave. Then capture each review as set out in the guide on documenting a review attack.
- 2
Protect the people in it
If a member of staff is named or threatened in the reviews, report those under abusive language first. They are the clearest breaches and the most urgent.
- 3
Brief your team
Staff may be named or filmed in the post. Ask them not to comment online, and to pass any messages, calls or visits about it to one person.
- 4
Report as they arrive
Report each review in the Reviews Management Tool under its policy. A viral wave keeps coming for days, so check daily and add new ones to your log.
- 5
Watch for an offer
Viral waves attract people selling a fix. Any message asking for money to stop or remove reviews goes on Google's merchant extortion report form.
When it slows down
Viral attention fades, but the reviews it left stay until they are reported and removed. Once new reviews stop, go back through that period, read each review again, and make sure each one has been reported or answered. Keep the screenshot of the original post with your log. If a second post revives the story months later, you will have the full history ready, and your replies will already show readers how you handled the first wave.
Sort the wave in one pass
A viral wave can be too many reviews to read one by one while you are also running the business. The free review check reads every low review on your listing and labels each one: Off topic, Spam, Abusive language and the other kinds Google bans, or No rule broken for real customers. The labels also show how much of the drop came from people who never visited. You tick which to file and are billed only for the ones Google removes, at a lower rate per review when several go in one order.