Today, Jason Brown of Sterling Sky discovered that Google had added messaging within the Google My Business interface that business owners would not be able to reply to reviews:
Hours later, Google updated their support page “Limited Google My Business functionality due to COVID-19“
As of this posting, users can go through the entire process of writing and leaving a review.
In fact, after they write the review, they will be able to see their review on the Google My Business listing.
The new review is in fact temporarily suppressed.
It will not be added to their review count and will not impact their star rating. There’s no messaging to let the user know that their review has been suppressed.
This is a surprising development. Google does have a disclaimer:
We will keep you updated with any news from Google regarding the ability to create new reviews and reply to reviews.
