Why isn’t my Google review showing up?
A customer says they left you five stars. It is not there. In most cases the review has not been deleted, it has been held back by an automated filter, and there is a short list of reasons why.
BY CHRIS EVANS · UPDATED 28 AUGUST 2026 · 6 MIN READ
Most missing reviews are filtered, not deleted. Google screens every review automatically and holds back or removes ones that look like spam, come from a brand new account, contain a link or phone number, or arrive in an unusual burst. Reviews normally appear within minutes but can take a few days. The quickest way to tell what happened is to ask the reviewer to open their own Google account and look at their contributions: if the review is still listed there but not on your profile, it has been filtered rather than removed.
First, work out whether it was filtered or deleted
These are different problems with different fixes, and you can tell them apart in about a minute. Ask the reviewer to open Google Maps, tap their profile picture, and go to their contributions and then their reviews.
If the review is listed there, it exists and has been filtered. It is hidden from the public but the account still holds it. If it is not listed there, it has either been deleted by Google for a policy breach or never submitted in the first place, which happens more often than people expect when someone types a review and then closes the tab without pressing post.
The usual reasons a review gets held back
- A brand new or empty Google account. An account with no photo, no name history and no other reviews looks like it was made for the purpose. This is the single most common cause.
- A link, a phone number or an email address in the text. Anything that looks like promotion is stripped or the whole review is pulled.
- A named individual. Reviews naming a specific member of staff in a complaint are sometimes removed under the personal information rules.
- Several reviews from the same network in a short window. A queue of people reviewing you on your own guest wi-fi can read as coordinated activity.
- A burst after months of nothing. Twenty reviews on one afternoon looks different from twenty reviews across three weeks.
- Off-topic content. A review about the parking, the weather, or a delivery company rather than about your business.
- A VPN or a location that does not match. Reviews left through a VPN are frequently filtered.
Check you do not have a duplicate listing
This one catches people out badly. If your business has two Google profiles, one you manage and one Google generated or an old one from a previous owner, customers can review whichever they find. The review appears, publicly and normally, on a listing you never look at.
Search your business name and your address in Maps and look for a second pin, a listing marked as unclaimed, or an old trading name. Duplicates can be reported and merged through your Business Profile, and the reviews usually travel with the merge.
How long you should actually wait
What you can do
- Ask the reviewer to check their own contributions list, so you know which problem you have.
- If the text contains a link, a phone number or a full staff name, ask them to edit it out and save. Editing resubmits it.
- Search for and report duplicate listings of your own business.
- Keep collection steady rather than spiky. A handful a week for a month beats forty in an afternoon.
- Make it easy for people to review from their own phone and their own account, wherever they happen to be, rather than handing them a shared tablet at the counter.
What not to do
Do not ask the same person to post the review again and again. Repeated submissions from one account against one business is exactly the pattern the filter is built to catch, and you can end up with the account restricted rather than the review restored.
Do not react by buying reviews to make up the shortfall, and do not set up a tablet in the back office to leave a few yourself. Google removes purchased and self-authored reviews when it finds them, and a profile with a history of them gets screened harder afterwards.
A tap point that keeps the flow steady
One-off £19.99, programmed to your Google review link before it ships, no subscription and no app. Free UK delivery.
See the standWhy steady beats sudden
The pattern that survives filtering is the one that looks like ordinary trade: a few reviews a week, from real accounts, on real phones, in the place the service happened. That is also the pattern Google's local results respond to, because recency counts and a flat line with one spike in it is mostly flat line.
If you are collecting reviews in person, the practical version of this is asking every day rather than running a campaign. A tap point on the counter makes the ask a two-second habit instead of an event, and the reviews arrive at the pace of your actual customers.
Common questions
How long does a Google review take to appear?
Usually a few minutes. Some take a few hours and a small number take several days, particularly if the reviewer's account is new or the review contains something the filter wants to look at. If nothing has appeared after a week, treat it as filtered.
Can I get a filtered Google review reinstated?
Sometimes. The reviewer can edit and resubmit it, which puts it back through the filter, and removing a link, a phone number or a staff member's full name often clears it. You cannot appeal a filtered review yourself in the way you can appeal a removal.
Why did my Google reviews suddenly drop in number?
Google periodically re-screens existing reviews and removes ones that fail. A sudden drop across several reviews usually means a batch was flagged, most often reviews from accounts with no other activity, or a group left in a short window from the same network.
Does asking too many people at once get reviews filtered?
A sudden spike after a long flat period does look unusual to an automated system. Steady collection over weeks is both safer and more useful, because Google's local results respond to recent review activity rather than one large batch.
Can a customer see their own review even when it is filtered?
Yes, and this is the most reliable test. A filtered review stays visible in the reviewer's own contributions list while being hidden from everyone else, so if they can see it and you cannot, the filter is the cause.