The audit reads your lowest-rated reviews one at a timeThe audit reads your lowest-rated reviews one at a time and names the clause on each
Run it →Google removes reviews for breaking published rules, not for being negative. Its policy is longer than this page, and grouped differently. The 9 clauses below are the ones a business owner actually files under, and each has its own page with Google’s wording, what qualifies, what does not, and the mistake that gets it rejected.
There is one published set of rules covering reviews on Google Maps and Google Business Profiles. Google’s own page is titled Prohibited & restricted content and sits in its Maps User Generated Content Policy help centre. Owners look for that same document as the Google review policy, the Google review guidelines, and Google’s community guidelines. Those are three names people search for; the document is one.
What it decides is narrow, and the narrowness is the whole point. A review qualifies for removal under a named category in that policy, or it stays. Nothing about how unfair it reads, how much it cost you, or how wrong it is on the details changes that. So this reference is organised by clause rather than by how bad the review is, and every page under it names the category a report would be filed under.
Google’s list is longer than the 9 clauses here and grouped differently. These are the ones a Business Profile owner ends up filing under, which is why they get their own pages and the rest do not.
A review must reflect an actual customer experience with the business, not a phone interaction, a quote request, a drive-by, or something the reviewer heard second-hand.
Reviews containing slurs, threats, or targeted attacks on individuals, protected groups or the business itself violate Google's policies. Google's own wording covers content posted to harass other people or businesses, which is the clause a review-extortion demand sits closest to.
Former employees, competitors, and people with a financial stake in disparaging a business cannot leave reviews about it.
Reviews that exist primarily to promote a competing business, link to alternatives, or advertise services violate Google's content policy.
The reviewer may well have been a customer, but the review isn't about your business. It's about the car park, the shopping centre, the manufacturer, or a different location entirely.
A review that publishes someone's private details (a full name plus workplace, a phone number, a home address, medical or financial information) violates Google's policy regardless of whether the rest of the review is accurate.
Reviews written by someone pretending to be a customer they aren't, including accounts posing as another real person, or a competitor writing as a fictional client.
The hardest category to argue. A review stating something verifiably untrue, not merely unfair, can be filed, but only where a document contradicts it. Opinion is never covered.
Reviews referencing regulated goods, illegal activity, or content Google restricts outright. A narrow category, but an unambiguous one when it applies.
Reporting a review starts with picking a reason from a short list, and that pick frames what the report asks. Report a competitor’s sabotage as Off-topic and the report asks whether the review is about your business. It is. Named that way, the report points at no violation, and the review that genuinely broke the conflict-of-interest clause is still there.
That is why the first report matters more than owners expect. Re-submitting the same words under the same category gives Google nothing new to weigh. After a decline, Google’s appeal step takes a written argument and one attachment, and it returns no reasoning when it says no, so what gets added is what it reads, not how strongly anyone disagrees.
So a filing starts by reading the review against the list, and names the clause whose evidence is cleanest rather than the one that feels most unfair.
A real customer describing a real visit. That is not an oversight in the policy, it is the policy. Google built the review system to carry exactly that, and no clause on this page reaches it. Not when the review is one-sided, not when it exaggerates, not when it is about a bad day you have since fixed.
Telling a genuine account from one that only looks genuine takes more than the words on the review: the reviewer’s profile, the timing and the rest of the listing all count. That reading is what the free audit is for.
What are the Google review policy violations?
Google's Maps user-generated content policy covers off-topic content, content that does not reflect a genuine experience, conflict of interest, advertising and solicitation, impersonation, personal information, harassment and hate speech, misinformation, and restricted content, among others. A review has to break one of these named rules to be removable. Being negative, unfair or wrong about the details is not a violation.
Which violation is easiest to get removed?
The ones visible in the review text itself, because whoever handles the report can confirm them without leaving the page: a link to another business, a phone number, a slur, an off-topic rant. Clauses that depend on who the reviewer is, such as conflict of interest or no visit, are legitimate but need the report to describe evidence Google can go and check.
Can I report a review under more than one policy?
You report one category at a time, and the category you pick decides what gets checked. Naming three clauses at once in the description does not strengthen a report; it can weaken it, because the clearest breach gets buried. Pick the clause with the cleanest evidence.
What happens if I pick the wrong category?
The report is assessed against the rule you named. If the review genuinely broke a different clause, the answer comes back as no violation. Re-submitting the same wording under the same category gives Google nothing new to weigh, which is why the first filing matters more than people expect. A second attempt has to bring a different clause or evidence that was not in the first report.
Does Google publish these policies?
Yes, in its Maps user-generated content policy, and it is worth reading in Google's own words. Google's own list is longer and grouped differently from the nine pages here, which cover the clauses a business owner actually files under. Each page explains what the clause covers in plain English and adds what a report needs to include, which is the part the official policy does not cover.
The free audit reads every review on your Google Business Profile against the policy list, plus the signals a single review cannot show: duplicate text across accounts, reviewer histories, timing clusters. No card and no signup to see the report. A removal is $150 to $250 per review, billed only when Google actually removes it.
Check one review against the whole list, or work out what removals would do to your star average. Both run in your browser.
The reasoning behind the rules, and what happens after a report is filed.
One question per page, written so the answer stands on its own.
Every industry gets a different attack pattern. These pages cover them trade by trade.
Policy quotes are from Google’s Maps user-generated content policy, kept short for fair use. Google’s own list is longer and grouped differently; these are the clauses removal reports are filed under.
