Throughout the month of October 2022, reviews have gone missing for several law firms, at least in the United States.
On October 17, 2022, a client pointed out that a personal injury law firm in Los Angeles had gone from around 100 reviews down to 39.
In several cases that we looked at, the review profiles lost around 60 – 70% of their reviews.
We have inside knowledge that the law firm in question purchases fake positive reviews from a company called AppSally. AppSally currently offers Google reviews from regular “users” and “Local Guides” for around $20/pc. Reviews taken down may have also been purchased from other similar vendors.
At the moment, we’re not sure how Google discovered these accounts. Obviously, these specific accounts must have fit a pattern. Was an overseas IP address used? Were they singled out due to so many accounts using one IP? Were the user accounts leaving reviews all over the world? Was it a combination of these things?
Regardless, Google is working to combat fake reviews on their platform.
Attorneys purchasing reviews are in luck: currently, it appears that Google has only purged around 60 – 70% of the fake reviews, which means that 30 – 40% of their reviews are still present. That said, Google has been doing daily sweeps of the fake reviews, possibly for weeks now.
Were your Google Reviews Removed?
If you had a significant number of (legitimate) reviews removed, we’d love to take a look at your Google Business Profile page and hear about any possible platforms you were using to encourage users to leave a review. While we may not be able to get them back for you, it would help us determine how Google is targeting these fake reviews.
Please note, this is separate from the every day Google review filter. For reference, please see our article: Google Reviews Not Displaying for Law Firms in 2022.
