How to remove negative reviews on CitySearch
I recently wrote a Citysearch review and how the negative review was removed from a Brooklyn business. That was followed of days of my mailbox being flooded by business owners asking me how to remove a listing. I understand that a company may need to remove a listing from a jealous competitor.
You can easily remove a listing from citysearch with the help of their editors as this one person wrote. But if that doesn’t work then maybe you need to listen to a few of these stories. First I am going to tell you how the business removed my listing and then I am going to tell you about two other businesses who were able to get rid of their negative reviews online.
a) The company that removed my listing was a sponsor of the site. They were able to make multiple pages for people in their office and other locations. They made a new listing for their place and then asked an editor (by e-mail) to delete the duplicate listing. Poof….the editor deletes it. If original writer complains that it is missing, they will tell him/her to resubmit it. The editors I spoke with told me that she didn’t have the technology knowledge to fix it.
b) A business owner who had just made a sponsored account on citysearch spoke with citysearch rep on twitter. Their exchange went like this:
So the owner here is saying that some locations are closed and need to be deleted ->which MAY be the case. But how would a CitySearch editor know if your listing was closed or not?
c) How can I remove my name from citysearch? A friend of mine sent me a link to this CitySearch because the business removed their name. I am taking a screenshot and will post that in case CitySearch picks up on it. I don’t think they will because apparently they don’t have the technology knowledge there.
So I imagine this business became a sponsor of CitySearch and then was able to go in and change their business name to “Business Removed” The listing still stands with reviews, but the business can not be found in google because it’s name is no longer on the listing.
Good luck in removing your negative listings on citysearch. I hope this answers the question on how you can delete reviews on citysearch. I understand how some companies may get negative reviews from their competitors or unfair reviews from customers who don’t like them, but if the review is true, you shouldn’t remove it, but learn from it.
So why would I help someone remove their negative review from Citysearch? Why not? Citysearch editors remove negative listings and the site isn’t authetic.
Hugs,
marlene
Topics: Uncategorized | 21 Comments »
August 4th, 2010 at 1:26 am
This works. I just did what you said and they removed the negative listing that has been on my page for 5 months. Thank you.
August 17th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
This is the problem with the citysearch site and other sites like it. Human nature is that you are more likely to bring it to everyone’s attention when there is a complaint then when you are satisfied. This leads to an imbalance in reviews. Customers can make remarks that are false and may not have any merit and then the business owner suffers for these inaccurate reviews. The bus. Owner then has to address and constantly monitor these reviews. If the bus. Owner does not subscribe to review site then they can not even address these reviews which in my mind is a form of blackmail. We should not give people a platform to try to destroy a business. What should be done if a customer has a complaint is go to owner so the bus. has the opportunity to solve any issue with customer. You would think that this is what a customer would want to do to resolve an issue so that a better bus. relationship could ensue. Postings instead many times do not lead to a resolution but is purely an unresolved “hit and run” by customer. if i had to pick an outcome it would be one in which the customer brings up concern to business directly giving bus. oppurtunity to rectify and both parties outcome is a good one with the addition of a continued bus. relationship. also, bus. should have the right to their listing in referance to adding it or removing it from these sites. if it can be added by bus. then it bus. should be able to remove it. if they want to list name and tel# like the white pages does then this would be fine but the exclusion or inclusion of other info should be determined by bus. if there is anyone else who is making effort to get these changes to occur, please let me know.i will be “on board”. ps. how many bus. out there have tryed the above technique “business removed” to remove their listing and was there a downside that was unexpected? also, do you just substitute bus. name in the account update info to “business removed” in order to accomplish the above?
August 17th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
Just so you know, the owner I left a review for and his partners all knew about the situation. I had no home insurance for two months according to the Insurance Company. We bought the house in August 2009….and we were nervous on Halloween because if someone fell we would not be insured. I posted my review to warn other homeowners…kept it simple by stating the company did not have good communication.
You can complain to CitySearch, but I talked to their head of technology and although he seemed interested in hearing the complaint, he did nothing to resolve it.
I don’t know how many businesses have removed their names the way the ones did above, but I thought it was interesting that CitySearch didn’t catch up to those businesses.
November 4th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
I just followed your directions and saved my businesses reputation. Thank you.
November 9th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
I was so glad to find your blog. I tried talking to their customer service but the young man answering the phone didn’t seem to understand. He just wanted to sell me their update service. I thought to myself What about if I want citysearch remove my listing and I knew there was someone who could tell me how I can remove my listing from citysearchs site.
I followed your advice and it worked for me to. Thanks.
May 29th, 2011 at 2:05 pm
if all doesn’t work, why not
May 29th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
i forgot what to say here
June 17th, 2011 at 9:40 am
we needed this thanks.
February 1st, 2012 at 7:30 pm
I have one negative remove not associated with my company. I emailed them and it wasn’t removed. I will pay $30 to anyone that can get it removed.
February 28th, 2012 at 7:17 pm
Come on, anyone? I need help removing our listing from CitySearch and we’ll pay $50 for it.
June 19th, 2012 at 6:51 pm
I followed your advice and finally got the junk about my shop removed.
July 2nd, 2012 at 4:30 pm
How do I remove a negative review from CitySearch that I wrote 5-6 months ago? The business owner refused to address a problem initially but now (after I prevailed in small claims court) he agreed to address the problem. My end of the bargain is that I’m to remove my negative post on CitySearch but I don’t see how to do that. Can you help me? Thanks.
July 10th, 2012 at 5:00 am
Michael I sent you an e-mail.
July 24th, 2012 at 8:41 am
Citysearch allows the use of purchased reviews–if a business’s reviews look suspicious to you– click on the reviewer’s name.
When clicked on you’ll see what other business that reviewer has reviewed & how he/she rated them. When you see reviewers that live in different cities from the business they are reviewing, and all the reviews are 5 stars– they are likely purchased.
Creepy that Citysearch doesn’t filter this crap out.
It’s a totally unreliable review site.
August 25th, 2012 at 7:59 pm
Fingers crossed! My ex husband posted a bunch of negative reviews about my biz which was obvious since it was the only review the users had made in 3 years… so for 3 years Ive been fighting to get them to resolve it. They used to let you respond to the comments, so I did to clear up the lies but now that Citysearch just redid their site they took away the ability to comment on reviews, they deleted all of my rebuttal comments, so I emailed about deleting a post for my closed business location (i actually have moved but there was no way to update the address on their either). Thanks so much for the post, I hope this works, I would rather have NO Listing on there than that crappy one. Also, they are the ones that do those BEST OF contests… which is a total scam as they want you to create deals like groupon and give them all of your banking information/credit cards, etc… my gut said don’t do it, I don’t trust them.
September 11th, 2012 at 11:43 am
It worked – thank you!!
September 11th, 2012 at 3:41 pm
It worked for me too! – Thank you as well! It took dodging a few calls from their sales dept. but the listing is down and so is the link to them on google… PHEW!
December 14th, 2012 at 12:53 am
I’m here seeking assistance for one of my customers. He has negative reviews on citysearch.com by 2 ex-employees, and an upset customer. The customer has since called and apologized to the owner and has tried to remove her post, but has no luck.
My customer wasn’t the person who set up the business listing, the address which is published on that site is incorrect and he has negative reviews which cannot be responded to.
We have e-mailed citysearch.com twice now and have tried contacting them through their site with absolutely no luck. If the entire listing must be removed that is fine with my customer, if its doing anything for his business at all, it’s running them away.
Can anyone tell me the best way to move forward with this issue? I cant get alive person on the phone!
December 14th, 2012 at 4:06 pm
They will never take down reviews good or bad, I tried for years until I found this site. The only way that I got my negative reviews (from my ex husband who is a competitor) taken down is by emailing them and telling them that the business is no longer located at that address and to please remove it. They actually responded by email within 24 hours and then I checked back in a few days and it was gone. Personally Citysearch is the LAST place anyone goes to look for things… if it is important for your customer to be on there, I would try to get the person who posted the negative review to go back on and post a retraction. Citysearch used to be able to let the business’s respond to posts, which I had done so with my ex’s reviews, but they took away that option and deleted my responses. So I would create a new user and post a review that says something to the effect of “Those reviews must be from ex-employees because I’ve had nothing but great experiences from….” GOOD LUCK!
May 12th, 2013 at 4:44 pm
Why does anyone take citysearch seriously at all? They have multiple mostly inaccurate listings of my company and repeatedly display the one negative review that a former client posted. He was
miserable and depressed and threw his angst on me. My response is gone, and none of the positive listings appear. They seem to systematically keep the negative and ignore the positive. A terrible website – certainly not friendly to businesses – rather, it seems, intent on damaging them. We need to kill its reputation.
May 12th, 2013 at 8:25 pm
Obviously you take it seriously Miriam or you wouldn’t have found my very old article about it.