Google Reviews

[RETEX]

We operate a printing company, and at the moment we have two locations in Houston, Texas. Our newest location just opened and so it has no reviews and no real content on Google +. A very satisfied customer seems to have posted two back to back reviews on the second location and it now seems that location no longer pulls up. It used to be that when you  googled our business name that both locations pulled up it seems to pull just first more well established location. The second location can still be found but for whatever reason it no longer shows up with our other results. Should we tell the client to remove one of the reviews? I hope we don't get penalized for this

Appreciate your feedback.

C

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Carlos,

Good thread! You're dealing with 2 separate issues, as I see it.

Issue 1 - Your customer shouldn't be leaving you back-to-back reviews on any platform. If you know this customer and can ask him to remove one of his reviews, that would be wise.

Issue 2 - The fact that both locations are no longer showing in the local pack for your search term may have nothing to do with your customer's odd review activity. Rather, it may have to do with competition. Unless you have few competitors, it's not terribly common to have more than 1 location show in the same pack for a product or service search. So, just looking for 'printing houston', Google may choose to only show your business once, regardless of you having 2 locations. Branded searches are different. If I look up 'Whole Foods Houston', Google is likely to show me multiple Whole Foods locations all in the same pack. So, you may simply be dealing with the presence of competition in your city, in which case, thinking about this from a hyperlocal standpoint may be your best bet.

For more on this, see: http://moz.com/blog/mastering-serving-the-user-as-centroid

That being said, it's always wise to keep an eye on your reviews and if a customer has somehow gotten the wrong idea about helping you by posting multiple reviews, outreach to them would be very smart. It wouldn't be good if Google wrongly decided this was some sort of spammy campaign on the part of your business.

You can also petition Google now to have a review removed: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2015/04/03/new-google-support-option-offers-a-form-to-contest-reviews/

Hope this helps!