Once again, the ever shifting sands of online, Google again moves the markers and makes a change, and this one may not necessarily be for the better.
Google is, without a doubt, the leader when it comes to being found online, and presently, where you stand in Google search results depends upon your online reputation and the reviews people leave about your business. Google has had a policy where the person leaving a review had to have a Google account in order to leave a google review, and the account holder’s identity was associated with reviews left. But, this month (December 2025), Google made a change to allow for anonymous reviews to be left.
In my opinion, this change could be disastrous, it certainly is dangerous.
There have been all kinds of abuse of the Google Review platform in the past. It wasn’t that long ago I reported the One Star Review Blackmail scam where unscrupulous overseas scammers would focus upon and attack a victim business threatening to flood your Google My Business page with fake and score-reducing One Star reviews unless you paid their blackmail demands. In response, Google insisted on accountability linking the review to an account and establishing a review dispute mechanism. Adding accountability did reduce the number of scams somewhat, but the dispute mechanism is where Google made a major investment.
Perhaps you didn’t know, but there are rules in place regarding people leaving reviews, and if a review that was left did not conform to Google’s rules, you could challenge the review and ask Google to remove it for violation of terms of service and review rules. Often, if you had a negative review, you could use Google’s rules to challenge the review, and if Google agreed that it violated policy and rules, Google would remove it. This tactic could often preserve your online reputation and score, which could hold a good search standing.
But now, with Google allowing anonymous reviews, I fear this change may lead to a rash of negative reviews to start pouring forth.
Look, it’s tough enough to get a satisfied customer to leave your business a review. Typically, a satisfied customer might, and this is a mighty thin might, tell one friend about the good work you do. Sad fact is, you can provide impeccable service to hundreds of customers providing spotless (pardon the pun) service on thousands of garments, and perhaps one person might leave a review. But, one bad experience that upsets a customer, and that one customer tells EVERYBODY!
At least when Google linked reviews with a person’s profile, you had a chance to go through your records and perhaps prepare a rebuttal, an explanation, and tell your side of the story. Often, simply having your name associated with your comments and opinions is enough to cause one to stop and rethink what one says out loud, publicly, which might stop some bad reviews. But, without the need to have your words linked to your identity, I think it might just allow folks to attack any business from behind the veil of anonymity.
Drycleaning as a process and an industry, is in a bad enough position without folks having any knowledge of the processes we use to make used clothing clean and appear or be restored to a like new appearance. Customers, through their lack of knowledge and understanding of what and how we do, often have extremely high expectations of our service(s). And, when a garment fails, or an expectation is not met, it’s not uncommon to have an upset customer find every online system they possibly can to trash our shop’s good name. Add to this that a customer can ‘facelessly’ rant and rave without fear of being identified, well, it’s a recipe for disaster.
Google is expanding its review appeal process, but, given how hard it’s been in the past to have a review removed even with cause and rules on the drycleaner’s side, I am very worried and skeptical that this anonymous change is going to be good for anyone.
In the meantime, I strongly recommend redoubling your efforts to generate positive reviews. You are asking customers to leave you a review, aren’t you? The absolute best way to bury a bad review is with multiple good reviews. Bad reviews get watered down and pushed off of first page results by good reviews. Again, given how hard one has to work to generate one good review (and bad reviews come easy), you better start rolling that stone uphill right away before an anonymous reviewer ties an anchor to your good name with a bad review.
There are review monitoring systems out there that you can rent for a reasonable monthly fee. These systems monitor review platforms, and will notify you whenever someone leaves a review about your business. This is often money well spent as these systems are sensitive enough to alert you when you receive a bad review, and you can quickly reach out to the customer to resolve their issue. Being alerted to bad news, dealing with it, can not only save you a lot of work trying to restore or repair a bad reputation, but it can also preserve your ranking in search engines, so your business continues to be found ahead of your competitors. You DO NOT want to lose your lead or your advantage in this particular race. Yes, it’s another ongoing monthly fee, but it costs a whole lot more to buy your way back to the top of search results.
Expert reputation analysis, monitoring, repair and review generation is a lot of social and psychological science. It’s not an everyday skill that a lot of people or companies possess. I strongly advise hiring myself or one of my competitors to assist you. Given that Google’s anonymous review change has already been rolling out globally, now is the time to start monitoring your online reputation, or at the very least, conduct an audit of your reputation and those of your competitors. If you need a hand or simple advice how to conduct an audit, please, reach out, I’d be happy to help, and no obligation or commitment.
