The other day I was performing a local search query and noticed a bad review had appeared in Google Maps. The review was not legitimate so I therefore went about trying to remove the bad review from the local listing as it could be potentially damaging for the business.

Firstly the review was from an external site and not from a Google maps user. Having researched this topic it appears that Google can associate a third party review that contains the listing of the site, and then place this into Google Maps if the information matches. The process is completely automated so you can’t stop some reviews appearing in the results even if you request it.

In this case the only way to remove the review is to contact the webmaster of the third party site and have the false review removed from the site. You will however have to wait for Google to re-crawl the third party site, and then remove the listing from your page on Google Local.

As this can be a long process I would suggest you ask your customers to add honest reviews to the offending site, this will push your bad review down the listings. Although time consuming reputation management is very important, you don’t want potential clients seeing a bad review first

If the bad review on your Google local listings is submitted though a Google Maps user you can actually flag the review as unappropriate. You will have to provide Google with the reasons why and leave a good review on Google. If Google believe the review is against their violations they will then remove it.