How to deal with fake Google reviews?

First, make sure the review is fake rather than just unwelcome. Check the name, the date and any details against your bookings, invoices, quotes and messages. A harsh review from a real customer is not fake, however unfair it feels, and reporting it uses up your appeal and your time. A review describing a job you never did, an area you don't cover or a service you don't offer is the kind Google acts on.

Report it through the right channel. In your Business Profile, open your reviews and use the report option next to the review, or use Google's Reviews Management Tool, which also lets you track each report. Choose the policy ground that fits: fake engagement for someone with no genuine experience of the business, conflict of interest for a competitor or former employee, off-topic for posts that have nothing to do with your work. Google says evaluation typically takes several days.

If a report is refused, the Reviews Management Tool offers a one-time appeal. Use it with new evidence, not the same argument again. Google's help pages ask businesses not to report reviews simply because they disagree with them, and an owner who flags every negative review makes it harder to be taken seriously on the ones that are fake.

Reply in public while you wait. A short, factual response such as "We have no record of a job under this name or at this address, and we have reported this review to Google" tells future customers what they need to know. Keep the tone level, because an angry reply gets read more closely than the review it answers.

Watch for extortion. If negative reviews arrive alongside a message demanding payment to stop or remove them, Google's advice is not to engage or pay, to screenshot the demands and the reviews straight away, and to submit its merchant extortion report form. Then keep collecting reviews from your customers, because a steady flow of honest ones makes a single fake look like the odd one out.