Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.
Marty Eigner: How do you deal with defamatory reviews on Google+ from competitors. Is there a way to have them removed?
Tim Capper: Reviews are really tough one to deal with and depends what country also.
First flag the review.
Then report the review to Google business support. You stand a better chance of it being removed if you can prove that they are not who they claim to be or if they were ever a customer.
Next option is your country laws. In the US you are stuffed if support does not remove. You need to build positive ones to replace the negative.
In the UK you can send a letter to Google requesting dull name and address of reviewer and removal of review to pursue liable action.
They normally then take it down.
Ryan Cramer: I would consider following the recommendation of Google Business help: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3474050?hl=en
In their article they point out "Replying to reviews can help build your customers' trust." Even with a negative review, replying kindly to the negative response shows the quality of your business.
For instance, if the comment is from someone pretending to be a customer, you can begin "Thank you for your review, although we cannot find you as a customer in our records...". Then list the "practices to ensure that this would not happen". (I hope that makes sense)
Having a "script" ready for these unfortunate comments can go a long way for other readers as well as deter repeated offenses from competitors, and it is less time consuming then trying to get the review removed (if it will be removed at all)
How do you deal with defamatory reviews on Google+ from competitors. Is there a way to have them removed? 
