Deleting Online Reviews: What Are the Stars Worth?

Where can I see how many reviews have been deleted?

The notice appears in the Google business profile directly below the review overview. Google justifies the display as a transparency measure: In Germany, due to a high number of complaints “regarding defamation under German law,” a notice has been displayed on profiles since the end of April if reviews were removed in the past year.

Google defines “defamation” to include, among other things, untrue factual claims or expressions of opinion that are not objectively justified. Businesses can also argue that the author was not a customer at all. On an information page, Google emphasizes that the notice does not affect either the ranking or the placement in local search results.

How often do restaurants and hotels have reviews deleted?

About half of the affected businesses fall within the range of one to a maximum of 20 removed reviews. Another roughly 20 percent fall between 21 and 50. Only a small portion shows ranges of 100 or even up to 250 removed reviews.

What reasons do businesses give for the removals? 

Many businesses justify deletion requests by stating that, in their view, the reviews were not based on an actual visit or were offensive. Macis, based in Leipzig, writes that after taking over the business following its predecessor’s bankruptcy, it had to inherit a large number of negative reviews from the past. They then had these reviews deleted.

On top of that, negative reviews from the COVID-19 period were added, some from people who were dissatisfied with government regulations. Criticism or dissatisfaction is often posted online quickly, unfiltered, and anonymously, says Managing Director Nancy Naumann-Hirt. Anyone with a Google account can write something “without ever having been there.” Reviews have now become a kind of currency with an entire industry behind them.

In some cases, reviews are also used as leverage, says Valerio Raso of Ristorante MammaMia in Dresden. “It happens time and again that someone, after a minor disagreement, immediately threatens to leave a bad review in order to get a discount or something for free.” However, the family-run business emphasizes that honest criticism is part of the experience.

How selectively do businesses handle the removal of reviews?

According to their own statements, businesses generally proceed very selectively and only have certain posts removed. If there are offensive posts—including those containing hate speech—this is reported to Google and a request is made for deletion, said restaurateur Michael Wiecker from Wernigerode. “But we’ve only done that once, a year and a half ago.”

Many businesses also emphasize that objective criticism should generally be allowed to remain. Honest and objective criticism helps improve service, several restaurants stated when asked. In Thuringia, Oliver von den Bergen, the operator of the Pension zum Ringelberg in Erfurt, explained that he has accepted objective criticism. He has only had reviews removed when he considered them inaccurate or abusive—for example, following conflicts with guests or when, to his knowledge, no visit had actually taken place. “I generally see no problem with negative reviews being visible—as long as they are based on actual experiences and accurately reflect the facts.”

What role do specialized service providers and law firms play?

Consumer protection expert Kroschwald now speaks, like Leipzig-based managing director Naumann-Hirt, of a veritable “deletion industry.” “There are professional service providers and law firms that view deletion procedures not as a tool for fairness, but as a business model.”“While consumers do have the option to challenge the removal of a review, they often lack the time and the supporting evidence to do so.” “This encourages overblocking—meaning that, in the end, more is deleted than should actually be deleted.”

Even in the eastern German states, some establishments are turning to such service providers—for example, when defamatory comments become too widespread or when isolated attempts to have them removed via personal accounts have failed. “In some cases, we’ve requested removals ourselves, but we’ve only had limited success,” says Jan Niclas Imholze of “Pier 37” in Erfurt. That’s why they decided to use an external service provider. “However, we’ve only had 1-star reviews removed”—those that were, for example, offensive or biased. The business profile still contains a few scattered 1- to 3-star reviews. 

In general, many restaurant owners emphasize the importance of exercising caution when removing reviews, as doing otherwise could create a false impression.

Can consumers rely on online reviews? 

Google reviews remain an important guide for many people, but their reliability is limited. “Whether you should really trust them in individual cases is another question,” says consumer expert Kroschwald. Skepticism also comes from within the industry itself: “Many guests know that you can have negative reviews deleted and positive ones created, so it’s not a valuable guide,” says Berlin restaurant owner David Canisius. At the same time, businesses emphasize that the system is vulnerable to abuse—such as fake profiles or reviews from people who haven’t actually visited. Against this backdrop, many restaurateurs advise against viewing star ratings in isolation: what matters most, they say, is the content of the reviews, recurring patterns, and whether businesses respond to criticism in a transparent manner.

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