Google Removed over 98% of the Reviews for a Business but Their Overall Star Rating and Ranking Did Not Really Suffer

In this case, a dental business lost 98% of their reviews because they were caught review gating but it looks like it didn’t impact their overall star rating for the business, also their ranking remained the same for several months before they finally declined one position.

Apparently, reviews that are removed for policy violations aren’t actually deleted, they are just hidden from public view. This potentially means that the ranking “power” that the reviews gave the listing originally would still be there. NOTE: this is just a theory.

Update 26/02/2021: From 2 examples we have seen at our agency when Google removed a review that had an immediate impact on the overall star rating.