Google has posted a new document about the way Google may apply restrictions to your Google Business Profiles over review or other policy violations. In the document, Google wrote that it takes "take fake and/or incentivized reviews and ratings on businesses very seriously."
"Businesses that violate our Fake Engagement policy may be subject to certain restrictions if we determine violative activity on their profile(s)," Google added.
Google also said that if they determine that a business owner has violated its Fake Engagement policy, Google "might place restrictions on their Business Profile (in addition to removing the violative reviews)."
The three examples include not being able to get new reviews, having existing reviews unpublished and/or a notice on your Google profile. Google wrote:
- Business Profile will not be able to receive new reviews or ratings for set period of time
- Business Profile’s existing reviews or ratings will be unpublished for set period of time
- Business Profile will display a warning to let consumers know that fake reviews were removed
Tim Capper spotted this and posted on X saying, "it's about to get real." Previously, this page was a UK only policy that read:
This article is for UK merchants only and not for your country or region. For more information on Business Profile policies and guidelines, please refer to the overview of Google Business Profile policies.
Here is what it looks like now:
Mike Blumenthal posted a warning screenshot:
Forum discussion at X.
