She been running her salon for some years now and finally built up a solid base of regulars. But the problem is most of them never leave reviews, so her total count is pretty low even though the customers seem to be really loyal.

A few weeks ago she woke up and noticed her rating had dropped from 42 reviews and a 4.5 rating to 35 reviews and a 4.1 rating. Turns out a bunch of her older reviews just disappeared overnight. No explanation from Google, no email, nothing. Some of those were from clients she’s had for 3 or 4 years. Then on top of that she got hit with two fake 1 star reviews in the same week from accounts she doesn’t recognize, one of them had never left a review anywhere else before.

She tried reporting them through the GBP help center and submitted the reports but still othing happened. Now her rating is sitting lower than it should be and I think her business is really affected by it.

I’m trying to help her figure this out because I am more tech savy then her as a developer but honestly I don’t even know where to start. Did anyone here manage to get fake reviews removed or get Google to actually respond? And the disappearing reviews thing, is that happening to others or was she just unlucky?