Google vs Trustpilot review removal: what is different?

What do the two platforms have in common?

One principle. A review comes down when it breaks a rule the platform has published, and for no other reason.

Google's report page says: "You can report any review, but only those that violate Google policies are eligible for removal". Trustpilot's flagging reasons page lists the five grounds a business can use and what it will not remove under each.

Neither platform sells removal. Trustpilot's Guidelines for Businesses say it treats flags the same way whether or not a business pays for its products. Google describes no paid route at all.

Both also punish the business for gaming reviews. The details differ, and they matter.

How do the two processes compare, side by side?

Sources for the Google column: the report page, the score page, the restrictions page and the tips page, which says reviewers must be signed in to a Google Account. For the Trustpilot column: who can write a review, flagging reasons, how to flag, appeals, TrustScore, Transparent Flagging and Action We Take.

How do the rules themselves differ?

The two rule sets overlap more than they differ, but they are cut differently.

Three differences are worth knowing.

Google names conflict of interest outright. "Current or former employment" is in the policy text. On Trustpilot the same review falls under genuine experience, where you must first use the Request information tool.

Trustpilot limits the genuine experience route. It generally will not check a review more than a year old under that reason, and you cannot use it on a customer you invited. Google's pages describe no such limits.

Google allows named doctors. Its personal information policy lets reviewers name "doctors, lawyers" and other professionals who practice under their own name. That exception is written into Google's text.

How does the first step differ?

On Google there is none. You report, and Google evaluates.

On Trustpilot, three of the five reasons start with the reviewer. For personal information and for a different business, Trustpilot first asks the reviewer to edit, and they have 3 days. For genuine experience, you must use Request information first, and the reviewer again has 3 days. Only then can the flag go to Trustpilot's Content Integrity Team. Source: how to flag service reviews.

The effect is that a Trustpilot case often involves the reviewer, and a Google case does not. On either platform, we never contact a reviewer outside the platform's own tools.

How do timing and appeals differ?

Google gives a loose number: "several days" for the first evaluation. Trustpilot gives none. Its help page says it looks into flags as soon as possible and that complicated cases take time.

Appeals are one each.

• Google: a one-time appeal through the Reviews Management Tool, for up to 10 reviews in one form. The result comes by email.
• Trustpilot: one appeal, within 6 months, through the link in the decision email.

On both, the appeal has to add something. Our guide to Google review removal appeals shows what a strong one contains.

What does a removal do to the score?

This is the largest practical difference.

Google's score is an average. Its score page says the score is "the average of all ratings published on Google for that place or business". Remove twelve 1-star ratings from 200 that average 4.1, and the average of the 188 left is about 4.3. Google says a changed score can take up to 2 weeks to show.

Trustpilot's TrustScore is weighted. Newer reviews count more than older ones, and every calculation includes 7 neutral reviews worth 3.5 stars. Removing an old 1-star review moves the score less than removing a recent one. Our guide to how Trustpilot calculates TrustScore has the detail.

So on Google you can work out the effect of a removal yourself. On Trustpilot it depends on when each review was written.

What are the risks on each platform?

On Trustpilot, the flagging itself is watched. Its Action We Take policy lists misuse of the tool: flagging only negative reviews, flagging the same review repeatedly, and flagging in bulk over a short period. The ladder runs from a warning to a public Consumer Warning. Your flagging activity is public for 12 months. Our guide to the flagging misuse rules covers it.

On Google, the published penalties are about fake reviews. A business that buys, fakes or pays for reviews can be blocked from new reviews, have its reviews unpublished, or carry a public warning. We found no Google page that sets a penalty for reporting reviews. That is not a license to report everything: each review gets one report and one appeal, and a wasted one is gone.

On both, incentives are banned. You may not pay or reward anyone to write, change or remove a review. The FTC's review rule says the same.

Where do Google stars come from if you have no Business Profile?

Many online health brands have no Google reviews at all. Google's eligibility policy does not allow a Business Profile for an online-only business.

The stars that show next to such a brand's Google ads are store ratings, which Google used to call seller ratings. Google builds them from review sources that include Trustpilot. For those brands, the way to change what Google shows is to work on the Trustpilot profile.

A brand with a clinic, a pharmacy counter or a staffed office usually has both, and should read both profiles together.

How do we work across the two?

The audit reads both profiles. You get one list per platform of the reviews that break a rule, each with the rule and the evidence, and one list of the reviews that stay.

The work then follows each platform's own route: flags through your Trustpilot Business account, reports and appeals through Google's tools under your Business Profile. A pack counts confirmed removals on either platform, at $475 to $600 each by pack size, with nothing up front.

Read more on the Google review removal page and the Trustpilot review removal page, or send both links through the audit request form.

This is the work behind our Google review removal service. You pay per removal, and the three packs and their prices are public.