Can a removed Google review come back?

Removed, filtered and deleted are three different states

Owners use one word for all three, which is why the answer to this question looks contradictory everywhere you read it. They behave completely differently.

Deleted means the author opened their own contributions and took it down. That one is gone, and nothing brings it back except the author writing again. Removed means Google read the content against its policy and acted. Filtered means Google's automated systems are holding it out of sight while they weigh it, which is not a decision and can reverse without anyone being told.

The last one accounts for most of the reappearances people describe. A review that was visible on Monday, gone on Tuesday and back on Thursday was almost certainly never removed. It was held, and the hold lifted.

The four things that put a review back on a listing

In rough order of how often owners run into them.

• The author wrote a new one. Same account, same complaint, new review with a new date. It looks identical and it is a separate piece of content, which matters because it needs its own report
• A duplicate listing was merged. Google merges profiles that describe the same place and the reviews travel with the merge. Old reviews you had not seen in months can land on your listing in one go, and an un-merge moves them back out
• A filter lifted. Automated holds are not decisions, and they reverse. Nothing was appealed and nothing changed on your side
• An account came back. When Google actions a reviewer's account every contribution it made goes with it, and if the account is later restored, so is everything it wrote, including reviews on listings that never reported it

How to tell which one you are looking at

Screenshots taken at the time are what make this answerable, which is the argument for taking them before you file anything rather than after.

• Check the date on the review. A new date means a new review by the same author, not a reversal
• Compare the wording against your screenshot. People rarely retype a review the same way twice
• Look at your total review count as well as the star average. A merge moves a block of reviews at once, so the count jumps rather than ticking up by one
• Check whether other reviews reappeared at the same time. One review is a filter or an author. A group of them is a merge or an account restoration

What it means for a filing you have already made

The appeal is the part worth protecting. Google's own screen says you get one appeal per review and that its decision on it is final, so a review that returns does not hand you a fresh one. Filing the same clause again on the same content returns the same answer.

If what has appeared is a new review from the same account, that is different. It is new content, it gets its own report, and the repetition itself is now part of the case: an account that keeps rating a business it has no connection to is a pattern Google's own trust systems are built to read, and the pattern belongs in the report rather than in a second appeal.

One thing not to do is start reporting the review every time it shows up. Google's misuse policy lets it stop reading requests from an account that files many weak ones, and that penalty follows your account rather than the listing.

If the same person keeps posting

A review that keeps returning under a new date is usually one person, not a system fault, and the route for it is the reviewer's account rather than the content. The report against a profile runs from the Maps app on a phone, it goes to a different queue, and it does not touch any review's appeal.

Where there is a message attached asking for money or free work to make it stop, stop treating it as a review problem. Screenshot the demand with its date visible, do not pay and do not reply, and use Google's separate report for that. A dedicated team reads it, which is exactly why it should not be spent on anything else.