Google review removal services: are they worth it?

No one outside Google can delete a Google review. Removal services do what you can do yourself, with more experience:

• Work out which of Google’s content policies a review might break.
• Write the report and the one-time appeal, with evidence.
• Sometimes make a legal request, for example under Australian defamation law, where a review is seriously false.

Removify, one of the best-known Australian services, says it submits requests “relying on the relevant Google Policies, Australian Law or a combination of both”, and that you only pay for successful removals after a refundable deposit. It doesn’t publish prices.

• Only reviews that break Google’s policies can be removed.
• Google asks businesses not to report a review just because they disagree with it.
• Google “doesn’t get involved in conflict between businesses and customers”.

So a service can’t remove an honest negative review, however unfair it feels. If they promise that, ask exactly how.

The ACCC says businesses must not suppress or remove genuine negative reviews, and should have an adequate basis to believe a review is fake or misleading before trying to remove it. The right route for a false review is to ask the platform to remove it. See fake reviews and the ACCC.

Also watch for extortion: a sudden burst of 1-star reviews followed by a demand for payment to stop. Google’s advice is not to engage or pay, and to report it.

1. Report the review from your Business Profile, choosing the most accurate reason.
2. Use the one appeal in Google’s Reviews Management Tool if it’s declined, with evidence.
3. Reply calmly and publicly. Our reply templates help.
4. Get more genuine reviews. See how many you need with the reviews calculator.

• The review is clearly fake or defamatory, and your own report and appeal have failed.
• You’re facing a coordinated attack or extortion attempt.
• The review names a staff member or makes serious false claims that are costing you work.

Before you pay anyone: get the fee in writing, confirm when it’s refundable, and ask which policy or law they’ll rely on. For serious cases, a lawyer who knows defamation law is often the better call.