Google Paused New Reviews on Some Business Profiles: What a Dubai Business Should Do

If you run a restaurant, clinic, salon or shop in Dubai, you may one day open your inbox to an email titled “Protecting your Business Profile from spam reviews”. According to Search Engine Roundtable (22 September 2026), Google is sending it when its spam systems detect a spike in spam reviews on a Business Profile. This post explains what the email says, what Google paused new reviews means for your day-to-day, and how a Dubai business can stay on the safe side. We could not find a report of this notice reaching a UAE business specifically, so treat the UAE angle as preparation, not a confirmed trend.

What the email says when Google paused new reviews

Search Engine Roundtable quotes the email as saying Google “detected a spike in spam reviews on your Business Profile and removed them so they do not affect your Google rating.” It adds that “new ratings, reviews, and other user contributions have been temporarily paused,” and that Google will lift the pause “once the risk is mitigated, typically within a few days.” It also says no action is required, and that if you believe legitimate reviews were removed by mistake, you can request a review.

The article's source is a LinkedIn post with a screenshot of the email and the discussion under it. It is not a Google announcement, so the details come from owners and consultants describing what they received.

A related report: reviews disappearing in July

Pinmeto reported on a separate episode in early July 2026, when business owners posted in the Google Business Profile forums about missing reviews. One owner reported about 4,651 reviews falling to 63 within roughly 24 hours. Google told Search Engine Roundtable that when its systems detect suspicious reviews it may remove them and temporarily pause reviews on a profile to prevent further abuse, and said: “We are investigating the issue and will restore any reviews that were incorrectly removed.” Pinmeto notes Google had not given a timeline for restoration. We have no way to say how many profiles were affected.

Why a legitimate business should care

The email is aimed at spam. But one commenter in the discussion, Amy Toman, said a former client who opened a new location and received steady reviews still got questions about the notice, and suspected the filter needs refinement. That is one person's view, not a finding. The practical point is smaller: Google's systems look at patterns, and an unusual burst of reviews is a pattern.

Google’s own policy points the same way. Search Engine Roundtable (20 February 2026) reports the Prohibited & restricted content section now addresses “unusual volumes or patterns of review contributions” that may indicate efforts to manipulate a rating. It also says merchants may not offer incentives for reviews or selectively solicit positive reviews.

What a Dubai business can do (our suggestions)

These steps are our practical reading of the reports above, not Google guidance:

• Ask everyone, steadily. Make the review ask part of every checkout or handover, not a one-off push after a promotion. A steady trickle looks like a real business; one weekend with 80 reviews does not.
• Never filter who you ask. Asking only happy customers breaks the policy wording quoted above.
• Don’t offer discounts or gifts for reviews. Incentives are listed as not allowed.
• Keep a record. Screenshot your rating and review count monthly, so if reviews vanish you can show what was there when you contact Google.
• Don’t panic if posting is paused. The email says no action is required and the pause typically lifts within days. Keep your card or stand at the counter, but expect new reviews not to appear until it does.
• Use the “request a review” route from the email only if you believe real reviews were removed by mistake.

Where an NFC review card fits

An NFC card or stand does not create reviews by itself and cannot protect a listing from a spam filter. What it does is make the honest version of the ask easy: the customer taps or scans and lands on your Google review page, every day, from every customer. That steady, even flow is the opposite of a spike. If you want a card in staff hands, the Google Review NFC Card with QR is AED 29 per piece. For a counter or table, the Google Review NFC Stand with QR is AED 59 per piece. Both prices were checked against our live product data when this post was published.

The bottom line

Review notices and pauses appear to be driven by spam detection, and the reports so far are from owners, not from Google’s own help pages. The safest habit is the boring one: ask every customer, ask all the time, and keep your own record of where your rating stands.