Google Squashes Review Count Bug

In early February, businesses started experiencing (and reporting) that their hard-earned Google reviews seemed to be disappearing from their Google Business Profile. They noticed this as they witnessed the count of their reviews decreasing.

Soon after, Google acknowledged the issue and has been working to resolve it. Google had a bug that that caused some Profiles to display review counts lower than the actual number of reviews. No reviews were removed due to this bug.

As of Feb 13, Google officially posted the following on their support page:

"Most affected profiles now display accurate ratings and reviews. However, while we have made significant progress, some profiles may still experience a temporary lower count. These profiles should recover to pre-issue levels over the next few days. No reviews were unpublished due to this issue. If your review count does not return to the level it was before this issue in the next few days, please contact support."

Of course, it is important to keep in mind that Google may remove any reviews that do not meet Google's content policy guidelines.