How to see my Google reviews, and how to keep up with them
To see your Google reviews, sign in to the Google account that manages your business, search your business name on Google, and select Read reviews on your Business Profile. On a phone, open the Google Maps app and tap Business at the bottom right to reach the same profile. Anyone can also read the reviews from the public listing on Google Maps by searching the business name and city and opening the Reviews tab. That covers the one-off look.
The rest of this guide covers the questions that come after it: why a review you were told about is not there, how to get Google to tell you about new reviews, and what changes once you are keeping an eye on several listings or on a competitor’s reviews as well.
How to see my Google reviews on a computer
Google’s own help page for managing reviews describes the owner’s route in three short steps (as of October 2026):
- Sign in with the right account. Use the Google account that owns or manages the Business Profile. If you look after a client’s listing, ask them to add you as a manager rather than sharing their password.
- Open your Business Profile. Search your business name on Google. While you are signed in as a manager, the profile appears with its editing controls at the top of the results.
- Select Read reviews. You get the full list of reviews, with a Reply button under each one.
The owner view matters for one reason: it is where you can reply. Google’s help page notes that you must verify your business before you can reply to reviews. If you can see the listing but there is no Reply button, the account you are signed in with is probably not a verified owner or manager of that profile.
How to see your Google reviews on a phone
The Google Maps app holds the same profile:
- Open the Google Maps app and sign in with the managing account.
- Tap Business at the bottom right to open the profiles you manage.
- Open the profile and go to its reviews.
On iPhone and Android the route is the same, because it runs inside the Maps app rather than the phone’s settings. If you do not see a Business tab, the signed-in account does not manage a profile yet.
Seeing your reviews the way a customer does
Sometimes you want the public view, for example to check how a reply reads or to share a review. Search the business name and city in Google Maps and open Reviews. You can sort by newest, highest or lowest rating, and filter by topic where Google shows topic chips.
Google’s help page also explains how to share one review: next to the review, select More, then Share review, then copy the link. That is handy when you want to send a client a specific one-star review rather than describe it.
Why can’t I see a review on my profile?
A customer says they left a review and you cannot find it. Google’s help page on missing or delayed reviews lists the usual reasons (as of October 2026):
| Reason | What is going on | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| Still being checked | Reviews are checked against Google’s policies, and that can take a few days | Wait a few days and look again |
| Profiles recently merged | Reviews from both profiles can take a few days to show on Search and Maps | Wait, then check the merged profile |
| Old app on the customer’s phone | Older phones or software can fail to post the review | Ask them to update Google Maps and try again |
| Removed for a policy violation | Google says these reviews will not be restored | Nothing; the review is gone |
| Reviews switched off for the category | Google can disable reviews for some profiles or categories | Check your primary category is right |
Google puts the policy point bluntly:
Reviews removed for policy violations won’t be restored.
That is the case worth planning for. If a genuine positive review disappears, the only evidence that it existed is whatever you saved before it went. Keep a copy of the reviews that matter to you, or use a tool that keeps one.
If the review you are looking for is one you want gone rather than one you cannot find, our guide on how to remove a Google review covers what an owner can and cannot do.
How do I get notified when I get a new Google review?
You do not have to open the profile every day to see new reviews. Google’s help page on notifications lists a Customer activity setting, described as alerts when customers leave new reviews or add photos (as of October 2026). Notifications can come by email, in Search or in Maps.
To check the setting from Google Search:
- Go to your Business Profile.
- Select More, then Notifications.
- Find the customer activity notifications and make sure they are on.
In the Google Maps app, tap Business, then Notifications at the top right, to see what Google has sent.
This is the free baseline, and for one business it is often enough. It has three gaps worth knowing about:
- It tells you about every review, good and bad alike, so the one-star review sits in the same inbox stream as the five-star ones and the photo uploads.
- It does not tell you which reviews still have no reply. You find that out by opening the list.
- It covers only the profiles you manage. You cannot get a notification about a competitor’s reviews.
Seeing reviews across several listings
Once you look after more than two or three profiles, “go and read the reviews” turns into a routine with real steps. A freelancer or small agency usually ends up with something like this:
- Open each client’s profile in turn, once a week or once a day.
- Scan for reviews newer than the last check.
- Note which of those are negative and still unanswered.
- Reply, or send the client the link so they can.
That works, and it costs nothing. What breaks it is the week somebody is away, or the client whose listing nobody opened, and a one-star review that sits unanswered for a month on a client’s listing is the outcome the routine exists to prevent. For what to write once you have found it, see how to respond to Google reviews, which has examples for positive, mixed and negative reviews.
Seeing your competitors’ Google reviews
Every business’s reviews are public, so you can read a competitor’s the same way a customer does: search their name in Google Maps and open Reviews. Sort by newest to see what changed recently, or by lowest rating to see what their customers complain about. That second view is often the useful one, because it shows you what customers in your area care about enough to write down.
The manual way has the same limit as before. You have to remember to look, and there is no notification for somebody else’s listing.
Letting software keep watch
If the weekly check is the part that keeps slipping, a monitoring tool can take it over. Review Radar is one way to do it, and it does a deliberately narrow job:
- you find the business by name and city, and add up to three competitors to watch beside it;
- reviews sync once a day;
- when a one- or two-star review is still unanswered, it shows on your dashboard and arrives by email with the link, so you go straight to the review that needs you;
- it keeps a copy of every review on your own listing and emails you when a saved review is no longer there, with its text, rating and dates, for listings of up to 1,000 reviews;
- each business shows its own last sync, so a watch that stopped working looks different from one with nothing to report.
It does not post replies to Google for you and it does not remove reviews. If you want a first draft to edit, press “Draft one for me” on an alert, or paste the review into the free Google review response generator. You can start free with one business for a month, and the pricing page has the rest.
| What you want to see | Free with Google | With a monitoring tool |
|---|---|---|
| All reviews on your own profile | Yes, Read reviews | Yes |
| A message about new reviews | Yes, every review | Only negative ones still unanswered |
| Which reviews still have no reply | Open the list and look | Listed on the dashboard |
| A competitor’s new reviews | Read their listing by hand | Up to three, on the same page |
| A record of a review that later vanished | Only if you saved it | Kept automatically |
If you are weighing larger reputation platforms instead, we have compared several, including a BrightLocal alternative for review monitoring and a Birdeye alternative.
When the manual way is enough
You do not need software to see your Google reviews if:
- you run one business and open the Business Profile most days;
- Google’s review notifications reach an inbox somebody reads;
- new reviews arrive a few times a month, so nothing piles up between checks;
- you are not interested in what your competitors’ customers write.
In that case the free routine is the whole answer: notifications on, a quick look at Read reviews each week, and a reply to anything new. Software earns its place when the number of listings, or the cost of one missed review on a client’s profile, makes the weekly look the part nobody gets to.
Summary
- On a computer: sign in, search your business name on Google, select Read reviews.
- On a phone: open Google Maps, tap Business, open the profile’s reviews.
- The public view: search the business in Google Maps and open Reviews.
- Missing review: it may still be under check, held up by a merge, or removed for a policy violation, and Google does not restore those.
- New review notifications: Business Profile, More, Notifications, customer activity on.
- Several listings or competitors: keep a weekly routine, or let a tool such as Review Radar watch and tell you which negative reviews still need an answer.