Google says review-related appeals for Google Business Profiles and Google Maps are delayed, with processing times extended and no timeframe given for pending cases. Dan Boguslavsky of Google’s team posted the notice in a Google support forum thread, and Search Engine Land reported it on October 20.
“Due to high volume of review related appeals, processing times are currently extended,” Boguslavsky wrote. “We are working diligently to process all cases. As of this time, we cannot provide a specific response timeframe for pending cases.”
What Google Told Businesses Waiting On An Appeal
The notice carries one instruction Google repeated in bold: do not create a duplicate appeal. Once an appeal has been submitted, the business does not need to do anything further, and filing the same case again will not move it forward. Google pointed owners to its help pages on missing and delayed reviews and on reporting inappropriate reviews, and to the tool for checking the status of a review removal appeal.
The delay covers a specific step in the moderation chain. A business that believes a review violates Google’s policies can report it; if Google declines to remove it, the owner can appeal that decision. It is that appeal — the second look — that is now taking longer, which means a disputed review stays visible on the listing, in Maps and in Search, while the case waits in the queue.
Why The Backlog Matters For Local Listings
Reviews are the most visible trust signal on a local listing, and a single policy-violating review — a competitor’s fake one-star, a review full of personal abuse, a rating left for the wrong business — can sit at the top of a profile for the whole delay. Search Engine Land’s summary of the practical effect is blunt: reviews a business does not want on its profile will likely be there for a longer period of time.
The timing compounds the problem. The notice lands in the run-up to the holiday trading period, when search volume for local businesses peaks and owners are least able to absorb a damaged rating. Google gave no numbers for the size of the backlog and no date for when normal processing resumes, so businesses cannot plan around an end point — only file once, watch the status tool, and wait.
Not The First Review Backlog Google Has Announced
Extended review-appeal delays are a recurring feature of the Business Profiles system rather than a one-off. Search Engine Roundtable noted that Google announced similar review appeal delays last December, and a separate backlog affecting Business Profile suspensions and reinstatement appeals was reported in March 2025. Those earlier episodes involved different queues, but the pattern is the same: appeal volume rises faster than the review operation can clear it, and Google responds with a volume notice instead of a service-level commitment.
For agencies managing many locations, the operational guidance from this notice is to log the original appeal, resist re-filing, and document the delay for clients — because a duplicate submission is the one action Google says can make an individual case worse.
Why It Matters
The appeals delay matters because the review system is where Google’s local platform meets a business’s livelihood, and the appeal is the only remedy an owner has when the first decision goes against them. A queue with no timeframe shifts the cost of moderation errors onto the smallest party in the chain. It also lands alongside other changes reshaping the local surface, from Google moving Google Posts higher in the local knowledge panel to a Frankfurt court ruling that Google needs consent for aerial images of private property on Maps and Earth and Ask Maps replacing Business Profile Q&A with AI answers — together, owners are being asked to trust systems they can influence less and appeal more slowly.
Background
Google Business Profiles is the free listing system that puts businesses on Google Maps and local Search results, and its review pipeline — automated filters, user reports and human appeals — has struggled with scale and with fake-review abuse for years. Google periodically confirms backlogs in its support forums rather than on a status dashboard, which is why notices like Boguslavsky’s thread, amplified by the search trade press, are often the only public signal that the queue has slowed.
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