For better or worse, Google has become an essential tool for hospitality businesses like ours. The upside is that it has rendered Tripadvisor largely irrelevant, a platform that no hotelier or restaurateur will miss. Google’s straightforward review system is more than the sharing of customer feedback—it helps your business grow and plays a big role in improving search ranking on Google. When people look for services like ours, Google considers these reviews to decide where your business appears in search results. More reviews can mean better visibility, bringing more visitors to your business page.
Yet lately, Google seems to be getting too big and too powerful for anyone’s good. Over the years, its dominance over search, maps, and online reviews has reached a point where small businesses, particularly in the hospitality sector, are being neglected and treated unfairly. The latest controversy surrounding the disappearance of thousands of Google reviews is just one example of this growing problem. The most frustrating part? Google seems increasingly run by AI bots instead of real human beings who can understand and resolve these issues properly.
The Disappearing Reviews Scandal
Recently, online discussions and news reports have highlighted a significant and unexplained disappearance of reviews from Google’s platform. Many businesses have lost years’ worth of customer feedback overnight, with little to no explanation from Google. In some cases, reviews were reinstated after weeks of complaints, while in others, they remain missing indefinitely. This is not just an isolated incident—it’s happening to businesses worldwide, and it highlights a deeper problem with how Google manages its review system.
At Churrasco Phuket Steakhouse, we were directly affected by this. It took us three weeks of back-and-forth with Google’s so-called “Help” function to get most of our reviews back. But even after all that effort, over 30 of our previous reviews are still missing. What’s worse, the only responses we get from Google’s support are bot-generated, generic replies that provide no real assistance or accountability.
AI Control Gone Too Far
The root of the problem seems to be Google’s over-reliance on artificial intelligence to manage and filter its review system. While AI can be useful in detecting spam and fake reviews, it is becoming increasingly clear that it is also deleting legitimate reviews from real customers. In our case, we have every reason to believe that Google’s AI is filtering out reviews that are submitted from our restaurant’s IP address.
Why? Because we offer free WiFi to our guests as part of our marketing strategy. Many customers appreciate this and sometimes leave a review while they are still inside our premises. However, Google’s AI appears to misinterpret multiple reviews from the same IP address as suspicious activity and automatically removes them.
This is completely unacceptable. It punishes businesses that provide free internet access to guests, and it silences real customer feedback simply because they happen to be using a restaurant’s WiFi. Worse still, when we try to report this issue, we are met with nothing but AI-generated responses that fail to acknowledge the core problem.
The Latest Incident: A Guest Review That Never Appeared
The flaws in Google’s AI-driven moderation system became even more apparent when a recent guest at our steakhouse wrote a review while sitting at our restaurant and showed it to us before leaving. Despite their review being fully written and submitted, it was never published on our Google page.
This raises serious concerns about how many other reviews from legitimate customers have been filtered out without any business ever knowing. If a customer takes the time to write a genuine review, they expect it to be visible. The fact that Google is arbitrarily removing or preventing these reviews from being published undermines the integrity of its entire platform.
Google’s Responsibility to Fix This
For a company with near-unlimited resources, Google should be able to do better. At the very least, they should provide actual human oversight to handle such issues instead of letting AI run unchecked.
We urge Google to take the following actions:
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Improve Transparency: Businesses need to know why their reviews are removed and have a clear way to appeal these decisions.
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Fix AI Misjudgments: Google’s system should not penalize businesses simply because reviews come from a shared IP address.
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Bring Back Human Support: AI-generated responses are useless when businesses face real problems. Google needs a dedicated human support team for resolving review-related issues.
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Audit and Restore Lost Reviews: Every business affected by the disappearing reviews should receive a proper audit, and their legitimate customer feedback should be reinstated.
A Problem That Affects Thousands of Businesses
Churrasco Phuket Steakhouse is not the only restaurant dealing with this issue. We are confident that thousands of other hospitality businesses around the world are experiencing the same frustration. Small businesses rely heavily on online reviews to attract customers and build credibility. When a tech giant like Google carelessly erases these hard-earned reviews, it can have a direct and devastating impact on a business’s success.
This issue is not just about lost reviews—it’s about the growing disconnect between small businesses and the platforms that control their online presence. Google’s increasing reliance on AI-driven moderation, combined with a lack of real human oversight, is creating a system that is unresponsive, unfair, and potentially harmful to independent operators.
Final Thoughts
Google’s review system is getting too big for anyone’s comfort, and businesses like ours are paying the price. The disappearance of legitimate customer reviews, the inability to reach real human support, and the unjustified filtering of feedback based on flawed AI algorithms all point to a platform that is more concerned with automation than accuracy.
If Google truly values the businesses that rely on its services, it needs to take immediate action to rectify these issues. Otherwise, trust in its review platform will continue to erode, and businesses will have no choice but to seek alternative ways to share customer feedback.
For now, we will continue fighting to have our missing reviews reinstated. But we shouldn’t have to fight in the first place. Google needs to recognize the damage it is causing and take responsibility for fixing it.
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Churrasco Phuket Steakhouse serves affordable Wagyu and Black Angus steaks and burgers. We are open daily from 12noon to 11pm at Jungceylon Shopping Center in Patong / Phuket.
We are family-friendly and offer free parking and Wi-Fi for guests. See our menus, reserve your table, find our location, and check all guest reviews here:
https://ChurrascoPhuket.com/
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