Old Reviews About a Business That Has Changed

Reviews that describe someone else

A restaurant changes hands. A clinic moves across town. A shop fixes the parking, the hold music or the slow refunds that customers complained about four years ago.

The reviews stay. They remain attached to the listing, still count towards the star average, and often still appear near the top, because many sites sort by relevance rather than by date.

A first-time visitor reads them and meets a business that no longer exists. Then they judge the current one by it.

Nothing about this breaks a platform's rules. The reviews were true when they were written. They have simply stopped being useful.

What old reviews are usually about

• A previous owner, with different staff, standards and habits.
• An old location, its parking, its access or its street.
• A problem since fixed, such as long waits or one rude employee.
• Products or services no longer offered.
• Prices from several years ago, higher or lower.
• Hours that have since changed.

The third deserves the most effort. A complaint about something since fixed lets the reply show that the business listened, which no five-star review can do.

Why they still carry weight

On a phone, a reader sees a handful of reviews before deciding whether to scroll, and the platform chooses which ones. Sorted by relevance, a long, detailed review from years ago can sit above last week's two lines.

The date is shown, often as four years ago, but plenty of readers skip past it, and those who notice cannot tell what has changed since.

Old ratings also stay in the average. A cluster of poor scores from one bad year keeps dragging the number down long after the cause has gone.

Replying to an old review

Owner replies are public and dated, which makes them the right tool. A reply written today, under a review from years ago, tells every later reader what has changed.

Keep it short and factual. Thank the reviewer, acknowledge what they experienced, say what changed and when, and invite them back.

Do not argue with the review or suggest the reviewer got it wrong. They were describing what happened then, and readers side with customers.

A workable shape: "Thank you for this. The restaurant has had new owners, a new chef and a new menu since the spring of 2015, and we would be glad to cook for you again."

Which old reviews to answer first

Not every old review needs a reply. Start with the ones a stranger actually sees: the first screen of reviews on Google, on Facebook, and on whichever review site matters in your trade.

Check them on a phone, as a customer would.

Then work through the other critical old reviews over a few weeks. Fifty replies written in one afternoon tend to read like one reply pasted fifty times.

Old positive reviews can wait. A thank-you is pleasant, but it changes little.

A worked example

An Indian restaurant in a suburban shopping plaza changed owners two years ago. The new owners kept the name, hired a new chef, rewrote the menu and added a lunch buffet.

On Google, the reviews shown first were long, detailed and from the previous owner's final year: slow service, a waiter who forgot orders, a butter chicken that arrived lukewarm. The average sat well below what recent diners were giving.

The owners had thought about asking for the old reviews to be taken down. None of them broke any rule, so that was never likely to work.

Instead they replied to the dozen most visible ones over three weeks, each reply saying when the restaurant changed hands and what had changed in the kitchen. They added one line about the change to the website's about page.

They also began asking. A small card came with every bill and went into every takeout bag, with no discount attached.

Within a few months most of the reviews on the first screen described the current kitchen, and the replies sat under the old ones for anyone who scrolled that far.

Earning recent reviews

Replies explain the past. Only new reviews replace it.

Ask every customer the same way, at the same moment: on the bill, in the follow-up email, at the end of a job. A steady trickle looks more natural than a sudden burst, and it keeps the first screen current.

Never offer anything in return. Google's review policies forbid paying for reviews, and a discount counts as payment.

Yelp discourages businesses from asking for reviews at all, so point requests at the platforms that welcome them.

Make it easy, too: a link straight to your listing saves the customer a search.

The rest of the listing

Reviews are not the only stale part. Customer photographs of the old dining room, the old storefront or the old menu stay on the listing as well.

Add current photographs of your own regularly, so a reader has a recent picture to set against the old ones.

Check that the hours, address and website link match the business as it is now. A reply saying the problem is fixed loses its force beside a listing that still shows last year's hours.

When an old review breaks the rules

An old review can be flagged like any other if it breaks a platform's rules: abusive language, personal information, or a review clearly written about some other business.

Being old, or describing a previous owner, is not a violation, and platforms rarely remove a genuine review because the business has since changed.

The counter-case

Replying to old reviews only works if the change is real. A reply saying the waits are fixed, beside new reviews about the same waits, does more damage than silence.

If the old complaint still describes the business, fix the problem first and reply afterwards.

And a business with a couple of old complaints among many recent good reviews can leave them alone. Readers weigh one stale complaint against a page of current praise.

For everyone else: answer the visible old reviews with what changed, and keep new ones arriving.

This month

1. Read your reviews on a phone as a stranger would.
2. List the old ones on the first screen.
3. Note what has changed since each was written.
4. Reply to each, briefly and with dates.
5. Ask every customer the same way.
6. Add current photographs to your listings.
7. Check hours and addresses on every listing.

Step five matters most over time. Replies put the past in context, but only a steady supply of recent reviews moves the old ones off the first screen.

A different problem, a review that was never about your business at all, is covered in a review meant for another company.

Frequently asked questions

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