Policy & process
How to document a suspicious Google review
A folder of screenshots is not a case. A dated record of what changed, and when, is.
By the time a review is reported, evidence is often already lost: a profile is edited, a review thread is deleted, or the pattern is remembered rather than recorded.
Documenting properly takes ten minutes and changes the strength of a report, because it gives the reviewer a sequence they can verify rather than a single grievance.
Send us the review and get an honest answer.
From £99 a removal, priced per review. No charge for the eligibility check.
- Honest check before you pay
- Most cases decided in 24 to 72 hours
- Full refund if Google keeps it up
What to capture
Capture the review and the account, not just the text.
- The review as it appears on your profile, including the star rating and the date
- The reviewer's public profile page, showing how many reviews they have left and where
- Any duplicate or near-identical text on other businesses, with the URL visible in the screenshot
- The review's own URL from Maps, so the exact content can be located again
Capture it as a pattern
A single review is a data point. Several arriving together, from accounts with no history, is a campaign, and that is what makes a fake engagement or conflict of interest report persuasive.
- Note the date and time each review appeared, in one dated log
- Note anything concurrent: a tender, a dispute, a rival's opening, a staff departure
- Record whether the same account has reviewed you more than once
Keep your own record clean
Your records matter as much as the screenshots. If a case turns on whether someone was ever a customer, a name and date search is the document that decides it.
- Keep copies of the bookings, quotes or invoices that show the pattern
- Do not edit or annotate original records: keep them as they are
- Store everything in one place, dated, so a case can be built months later
Official Google documentation
Questions we get asked
Where you are showing that the same text appears elsewhere, yes. The URL is what makes the duplication checkable rather than a claim.
Not for that review, and a deletion often means the reviewer knew it was a problem. What matters is documenting the next one immediately.
Keep it while the review is up and for a period afterwards, since repeat behaviour by the same account is useful context on a later case.
Related pages
Tell us about the review
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