Things are changing rapidly from moment to moment and we are thinking of you all. Due to COVID-19, Google My Business has temporarily placed restrictions on their review services. Customers are unable to post reviews on Google, and at the moment, businesses are unable to respond. Google released a statement explaining that they are reducing their in-office staff. From what we can tell, they decided to pause reviews in order to limit negative reviews with false claims about COVID-19, following a move Yelp recently made. Yelp reviews are still allowed, but new guidelines prohibit users from claiming they contracted the virus from the businesses they’re reviewing and also from leaving negative reviews due to changing business hours. Yelp is doing this in order to protect businesses during this stressful time. We are still able to respond to Yelp reviews with their new guidelines in place.
We assure you that our team is monitoring these changes on Google My Business. While we wait to hear more, we will continue to respond to reviews on both Yelp and Facebook.
Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns, or if there’s anything at all that we can do to make your life any easier during these crazy times. We will let you know as soon as this issue is resolved. One thing is certain – we are all in this together!
The WebPunch Team
