Google is addressing a bug that led to reviews disappearing from Google Business Profiles, with ongoing efforts to restore the missing reviews.
Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, responded on Twitter to Mike Blumenthal, who reported the bug a week prior, confirming that many reviews have already been restored and work is continuing.
Blumenthal highlighted the severity of the issue, noting that reviews are crucial for restaurants and their removal can heavily impact revenue. Many business owners have reported losing most or all of their reviews in the Google Business Profile help forums.
A common factor among these businesses is that they lost reviews after implementing Google’s suggested edits to their profiles. Blumenthal revealed in a blog post that the Customer Identification (CID) number was altered when edits were applied:
“With some investigation, I found that Google had changed the CID, the identifier used to link all relevant information to a business, including reviews. Typically, the CID only changes when two listings merge or if a listing has been hard-suspended for policy violations and then reinstated.”
Since customer reviews are linked to a specific CID number, changing the CID results in the removal of the reviews. This situation should not occur, especially when applying Google’s suggested changes.
A fix is being developed, which hopefully will involve reverting the affected profiles to their original CID numbers.
We will provide updates if Google releases any further information.
