Star ratings are displayed under the page title of Facebook business Pages.
Facebook began rolling out a star ratings system in the latter part of 2013 that now affects all business Pages linked to a physical address. It allows any Facebook member to leave a star rating and/or review any business Page being viewed. These star ratings are displayed under the page title. Hovering over that section reveals a small pop-up box that gives the total number of ratings as well as how those ratings are broken down.
Hovering over star reviews will reveal a box that gives a breakdown of your ratings.
Also included in this new feature is a “Reviews box” that is now displayed at the top of the Timeline for your Page. Formerly named “Recommendations”, previous reviews and star ratings are listed in this area. When this section was named “Recommendations”, Page admins would receive an email notice if a new review was posted. It would also allow admins to respond to each review directly beneath that comment. These two features have been removed. Page admins will need to be diligent about checking their Facebook Page for new reviews. You will also need to be creative in how you respond to these reviews as there is no way to engage with the reviewer directly on Facebook as before.
Another issue with Facebook star ratings is that you may not be able to see the name of everyone who has left you a rating. If a reviewer only posts a star rating without entering an actual review, that persons’ name will not appear in the “Reviews” box and will only be viewable by his or her friends on Facebook. The star rating they leave will still be added to the total number of cumulative reviews that your Page displays. This means that your Page may display a higher number of total reviews in your cumulative star rating than your “Review” box actually shows. The obvious problem with this is that reviewers can leave anonymous ratings on your Page and you are unable to respond to them or have them removed.
Can I remove negative reviews?
We hope that Facebook will fix these problems with their star review system. These issues effectively create a “wild west” system of reviews where almost anything goes and reviews cannot be trusted for their accuracy. Until Facebook fixes this, we suggest a proactive approach to encouraging reviews on your Facebook business Page.
If your Page receives a review that you consider spam or inappropriate, you can report that post as such. You should know that Facebook can be very reluctant to remove reviews and that this isn’t always the best course of action if the review isn’t truly spam and doesn’t actually fall outside of Facebook’s terms of use policies.
Can I opt-out of reviews?
You can remove the star ratings and review section from your Facebook Page entirely by choosing to remove the map functionality of your Page. This is accomplished by going to the “Edit Settings” section of your Admin Panel and deselecting the “Show this map on your Page” option under the “Page Info” tab. You should know that doing so will mean that people will be unable to check-in on mobile devices because this action will unlink your Page from its physical location. We don’t suggest doing this unless there is a compelling reason to do so, such as a large number of negative reviews. Again, a better option is to look for ways to flood your Page with legitimate positive reviews and “drown out” the negative ones.
Have more questions about Facebook star ratings?
DO you have a specific question regarding Facebook reviews that we didn’t answer here? Leave us a comment!
Smile Savvy provides social media setup and management of all major social media networks including Facebook. Visit our website for more information on how we can help your dental practice get found online.
7 Comments. Leave new
Something you missed is that people can change the privacy settings of their review, which means that the page admin may not even be able to see it, let alone report it.
So, although the content appears right there on your page, potentially to tens of thousands of other people, as page admin you won’t even know.
Malicious posters can even specifically exclude page admins and people related to the business if they wish.
Great article! This is a confusing topic that has been explained nicely. A must read for all businesses with a Facebook Page.
‘Change Facebook Ratings’, that’s a great point. All the more reason that we agree the system needs to be changed. Hopefully this post gives some pointers for dealing with it until it does.
Hi there, can you sponsor or promote positive reviews to appear above negative reviews?
Thanks, Lauren
Great question, Lauren.
Yes, you can promote the reviews that you receive. They won’t appear above negative ones listed in your review section, but by promoting the positive reviews, they will get much better visibility and get a greater reach than your negative ones. Simply choose “view all” from the review section. Then, “share” the post that you want to highlight to your Page. Once it has been shared, it becomes just like any other post on your newsfeed and you will have an option to Boost the post or to promote it with an advertisement.
Can I change the review list shown? Currently showing “Most Helpfull” and would prefer ” Most Recent”. Also, what does most helpfull mean?
Hi Rob, The default view is “Most Helpful” and that can’t be changed in Admin settings. It’s based on an algorithm that Facebook doesn’t disclose based on factors such as the number of reviews left by that user, the relationship of the reviewer to the viewer, the engagement that review received. It’s an imperfect system but essentially is supposed to represent what Facebook’s calculations show to be the most helpful reviews for users.