Google Reviews & Facebook Reviews Updates

In late April, both Google and Facebook made some important changes to their review systems/policies. And since the big G and FB are the top two review sites for most businesses, we want you to be aware of what these changes are and how they impact both your business and your Get More Reviews account.

Here's what you need to know:

In April, a change appeared on Google's review policy. The change added the following "criteria" for review content on Google Maps:

"Don’t discourage or prohibit negative reviews or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers."

In these vague terms, it sounds reasonable, right? It's understandable that review sites want reviews to remain unbiased and authentic. But is it "discouraging negative reviews" to identify unhappy customers and resolve their issues offline?

As is often the case with these policies, much is left to interpretation!

It remains to be seen how Google will interpret the policy in practice, not to mention if or how they will enforce it.

Still, our goal has always been to help local businesses get more Google reviews while still adhering to review site policies and following best practices.

In response to this policy change, we've made an update!

We've now added the ability for happy customers to leave "private" feedback, in addition to the option of leaving a public review.

This new "private feedback" link can't be turned off or hidden inside your dashboard. As always, however, we leave up to you the determination if and how to comply with review site policies. So if you decide you'd like to remove this option for private feedback, just open a support chat or email us at help@getmorereviews.com.

Ok, now on to the really fun stuff...

We noticed this change just today, and Facebook hasn't yet updated their official help page with information, so this one is hot off the presses!

Facebook appears to be replacing the traditional "star rating" system on business pages with a new "Score" system.

Here's what we know so far:

1. The "score" system is based on more than just an average of star ratings

The new score is out of 10 and is based not only on the reviews left directly on your page, but also when Facebook users share "recommendations" of you on other posts or profiles. In addition, reviews are weighted based on how recent they are.

2. Your score appears in a number of places across Facebook

In addition to replacing the star rating on the "Reviews" tab on your page:

It also appears on the "Home" tab of your page:

AND it appears as a badge on your profile picture in search results:

That's all we know for now, but we promise to keep you posted as Facebook shares more about this update.

So what action should you take based on this news?

• Continue to follow Google's stated review policies, like not offering incentives for good reviews and not having employees review your business.
• Make sure to send feedback requests to all customers, not just ones you think are happy!
• If you haven't had a Facebook review in a while, consider putting Facebook as the #1 priority site in your Get More Reviews account.
• Continue sending review requests consistently to make sure your reviews are fresh and new 😎

Whew, that's a lot for one blog post! As always, don't hesitate to reach out to us with any questions you may have.