You log into your Google Business Profile and the review count is wrong. Not slightly off. Wrong. Reviews that were there last week are gone. Customers are telling you the review they left never showed up. You have not done anything differently, you have not violated any policies, and Google is not showing you an error.

This is not you. This is a confirmed Google bug, and it is affecting local businesses right now with no fix timeline in sight.

What Is Actually Happening

Google has confirmed a bug affecting Google Business Profile reviews. For impacted listings, existing reviews are disappearing from public view and new reviews are failing to post. Google paused the ability to receive new reviews on affected listings while it investigates.

The bug was flagged in Google’s own July 2026 search update summary and acknowledged publicly. Google has confirmed it is being worked on but has not committed to a resolution date.

For a local business, reviews are not decoration. They are one of the primary signals Google uses to rank you in the local pack. When they disappear, your ranking signal weakens and the social proof customers rely on when choosing between you and a competitor goes with it.

How to Tell If Your Business Is Affected

Check your Google Business Profile now. Here is what to look for:

• Compare your public review count on Google Search against what your dashboard shows
• Ask a trusted contact to search your business name and report the review count they see
• Try leaving a test review from a separate Google account to confirm whether new reviews are posting
• Check whether any reviews from the past few weeks have vanished from your public listing

If your count has dropped, recent reviews are missing, or new reviews are not going through, your listing is likely caught in this bug.

What This Means for Your Local SEO

The immediate impact runs in two directions.

First, the number visible on your listing has dropped. Customers scanning results see a lower count, which affects how credible your business looks before they click. Review count and rating are two of the first signals a potential customer reads when comparing local options.

Second, the ranking signal changes. Google’s local algorithm treats review velocity and total count as trust signals. A listing that appears to have fewer reviews and is not accumulating new ones looks, to the algorithm, like a business that has gone quiet. That can shift your position in the local pack.

Neither effect is permanent. This is a temporary disruption, not a penalty. But the time between now and when Google resolves it is time competitors with unaffected listings have an advantage.

What to Do While Google Fixes It

You cannot speed up Google’s fix. You can control where else your reputation lives in the meantime.

What to Expect Next

Google has confirmed the bug and is working on a resolution. Based on how Google has handled similar issues, the most likely outcome is a gradual rollout of fixes across affected listings. Some businesses will see reviews restored before others, and there will probably be no advance announcement.

The fix will most likely just happen. Affected listings will start showing correct review counts again without a formal notification from Google.

If reviews were lost rather than hidden, there is a possibility some will not return. Google typically restores data from confirmed bugs rather than losing it permanently, but the outcome is not guaranteed. Watch your listing closely over the next two to four weeks.

If your review count has not recovered after the bug is publicly marked as resolved, that is the point to contact Google Business Profile support directly with documentation of your pre-bug review count.

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