Google policy citation
Off-topic content
The reviewer may well have been a customer — but the review isn't about your business. It's about the car park, the shopping centre, the manufacturer, or a different location entirely.
What Google says
“Reviews are most valuable when they are honest and unbiased. Make sure your review is about the specific business you're rating.”See Google's full content policy hub
Qualifies for removal
- →Review is about parking, the building, or a neighbouring tenant you don't control
- →Review is about a manufacturer's recall or a lender's credit decision, not the business
- →Review was clearly meant for a different location of the same brand
- →Review is about Google, a delivery app, or a different platform
- →Review is a general life rant unrelated to the business
Does NOT qualify
- →Detailed complaint about the actual service experience (on-topic)
- →Complaint about something you do control, like your own staff or your own pricing
Evidence that clears this clause
Whoever reads your report can see the review, the reviewer's public profile and your listing. Nothing else. Anything that lives only in your own systems has to be described, not assumed.
- The review is about the building, the car park, or a neighbouring business
- It is about a different branch, or a business with a similar name
- It is political or social commentary with no account of using your service
- It complains about Google, a delivery platform, or a third party rather than about you
The mistake that gets this rejected
Reporting it as fake. Off-topic is a claim about the content, which is visible; fake is a claim about the reviewer's intent, which is not. The off-topic clause is easier to win on exactly because it needs no inference.
Questions about this clause
A customer reviewed us over a delivery app's mistake. Does that count?
Often yes. If the complaint is entirely about the delivery platform's handling and not about your food or service, it is not about your business.
What about a review of the shopping centre we're inside?
Same clause, and one of the more straightforward versions of it. Parking, the building and neighbouring tenants are not your listing.
Want this policy applied to your reviews?
Run the free audit and we'll score every review on your listing against this policy and the others. No card, no signup to see the report. You're billed only when Google actually removes a review.
The other policy categories
Full breakdown: Google review policy violations explained · remove fake Google reviews · straight answers · by industry
The other content-policy categories
A review often breaks more than one clause at once, and the strongest filing names the clause with the cleanest evidence rather than all of them.
How this plays out in your trade
The same policy clause gets abused differently depending on the business. These pages cover the attack patterns we see most often per trade.