How to Prevent Amazon From Deleting Your Reviews by guest @IolaGoulton

Amazon Reviews

All authors want them, because they show social proof on the world’s biggest online bookstore. That has an indirect effect on sales, and can help an author obtain an advertising slot with BookBub or one of the other big ebook advertisers.

Readers also want reviews. Reviews provide social proof, a perceived indication of quality. At least, that’s what reviews are supposed to provide. Amazon is fighting a neverending battle against the rising tide of fake reviews, and are forever refining their algorithms to identify and weed out fake reviews and dishonest reviewers. Their regular review purges are usually followed by some change to their Reviewing Guidelines to prevent that loophole from being exploited in future.

I discussed this in a recent post: A (not so) Brief History of Fake Reviews on Amazon. As frustrating as the ever-changing Reviewing Guidelines are for honest authors, my observation is that the Amazon crackdowns are always the result of sellers (or authors) trying to manipulate the system for personal gain.

I’m all for Amazon removing the reviews of fakes and cheats and liars. Unfortunately, sometimes honest authors and honest reviewers find themselves losing reviews, collateral damage in Amazon’s war.

I know authors get upset when they lose reviews. But try to look at the bigger picture. You might have lost one or two reviews (maybe more). That means there are one or two reviewers out there (maybe more) who have just lost hundreds of reviews representing thousands of hours of work. They may also have had their Amazon reviewing privileges revoked.

As a reviewer, losing hundreds of reviews is devastating. I lost 800+ reviews last year.

Fortunately for me, this was a temporary glitch—my reviews reappeared a couple of days later. I might not even have noticed they’d disappeared if one author hadn’t noticed my review of her book was missing and let me know.

So Why Do Reviews Get Deleted? and Can We Stop Them Being Deleted?

Here are my theories and suggestions.

  • 1Include an FTC Disclaimer

Some reviewers don’t disclose they received a free book—something that is required under the Federal Trade Commission Guide Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. If a reviewer receives a free book to review as an individual or as part of a reviewer program (e.g. through NetGalley), then the FTC considers their review an endorsement. The FTC says:

Knowing that reviewers got the product they reviewed for free would probably affect the weight your customers give to the reviews [and] your customers have the right to know which reviewers were given products for free.

Reviewers don’t have to disclose they received a free product if other people had the opportunity to acquire the free product e.g. a book that was available free on Amazon.

Note also that Amazon now only permits sellers to provide books and ebooks to be offered free to reviewers. Reviewers may not accept any other free product to review.

Solution: As a reviewer, always disclose if you received a free book. As an author, remind your reviewers to disclose.

  • 2Don’t say “In Exchange”

Some reviewers say they got a free book or ebook in exchange for a review. This used to be the preferred way to phrase the required FTC disclaimer, but the rules have changed. Amazon now says:

Book authors and publishers may continue to provide free or discounted copies of their books to readers, as long as the author or publisher does not require a review in exchange or attempt to influence the review.

Yes, reviewers must disclose if they received a free book. But they are under no obligation to review, so they must not write “in exchange.”

Solution: As a reviewer, disclose the free book, but don’t say a review was required. As an author, remind your reviewers that they aren’t obligated to provide a review, but reviewing will earn your undying gratitude.

 

  • 3Obey the Reviewing Guidelines

Some reviews clearly violate Amazon’s Reviewing Guidelines. These prohibit reviews by family, friends, or business associates (so I can’t review books I’ve been paid to edit on Amazon).

Amazon also prohibits paid reviews, or reviews in exchange for vouchers, in-game credits, contest entries, promised refunds, or any other form of compensation. These all fall under the heading of promotional reviews.

Solution: As a reviewer, ensure your reviews are honest customer reviews, not promotional reviews. As an author, don’t ask family, friends, or business associates to review your book.

 

  • 4Don’t Use SUPER URLs

There is a theory that authors who use so-called Super URLs to direct their street team to review their books are losing reviews because Amazon uses the timestamp (the QID) on the Super URL to “prove” the review requests have all come from the same person i.e. the author.

What’s a Super URL? Here’s an example, the Super URL for Rachel Thompson’s SEO book:

https://www.amazon.com.au/BadRedhead-Media-Optimize-Tested-Writers-ebook/dp/B079WSKYKZ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1533089114&sr=8-1&keywords=rachel+thompson+seo

You can see my search terms at the end of that string: Rachel Thompson SEO

You can also see the QID, the timestamp which shows when I made the search: 1533089114. Here’s the same search made in a new tab a minute or so later:

https://www.amazon.com/BadRedhead-Media-Optimize-Tested-Writers-ebook/dp/B079WSKYKZ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1533089184&sr=8-1&keywords=rachel+thompson+seo

You can see the Super URL is almost identical. The only thing which has changed is the timestamp, which has increased from 114 to 184.

Here’s the short URL, which includes just the title and the ASIN:

https://www.amazon.com/BadRedhead-Media-Optimize-Tested-Writers-ebook/dp/B079WSKYKZ/

That’s still long, so a lot of book bloggers share their short Amazon affiliate link instead. Here’s my affiliate link:

https://amzn.to/2O0W6V0

That’s tidier. But it links directly back to me, so while I believe it’s a great idea for authors to use Amazon affiliate links on their websites, they shouldn’t be used for review links. Why not? Because they link right back to you, the author. Also, affiliate links aren’t supposed to be shared via email, which is how most authors request reviews from their street team, or from individual bloggers.

But are Super URLs really a problem? Carolyn Jewel wrote a long and technical blog post explaining why the timestamp aka QID code isn’t the issue. Her TL;DR states:

[thrive_highlight highlight=’#ff9900′ text=’light’]Amazon URLs don’t identify the person who did the search so Amazon is not using incoming links as a criteria for review removal. The value of qid= in a URL does not assist in distinguishing the user account. While there are reasons to use a “clean” Amazon URL in your links, identification of your Amazon account as the link source is not one of them.[/thrive_highlight]

https://carolynjewel.com/wordpress/2016/01/31/amazon-reviews-and-timestamps/

The issue is actually the search terms in the URL. Many Amazon sellers use Super URLs to try and trick the Amazon algorithm into thinking their product is being searched for by “real” customers, so Amazon will think it’s a popular product and promote it in the search results list. However, even the “experts” touting this technique acknowledge it may breach Amazon’s seller policies:

Amazon’s policy strictly states that manipulation of their algorithm is forbidden. Amazon Super URLs, therefore, walk a very thin line of policy violation, which is why most sellers avoid using Super URLs altogether.

https://sellics.com/blog-amazon-super-url

Solution: don’t use Super URLs. Instead, use the short URL, or the link on your Amazon dashboard.

But My Reviews Are Still Being Deleted!

 

Sometimes reviews are deleted through no fault of the reviewer or the author. Here are three more reasons reviews might be deleted:

Reviewer Choice

Reviews are the intellectual property of the reviewer, and reviewers can delete individual reviews, or all their reviews. Maybe they’ve changed their mind. Maybe they have an issue with Amazon. Maybe they have died, and the next-of-kin or password holder deletes the reviews and closes the account.

Solution: None. (Because reviewers are human.)

An Amazon Glitch

Glitches are common. Top 10,000 (and even Top 10) reviewers have had hundreds of reviews one day, and none the next. Then they reappear. No one knows why.

Solution: None. Unless you’re Jeff Bezos.

System-Wide Purge

Every so often, Amazon undertakes a system-wide purge of reviews (usually when they’ve identified yet another group of sellers and reviewers colluding to defy their Reviewing Guidelines). For example, as part of my research for this post I looked for Harriet Klausner’s reviewing profile. It’s been deleted, so anyone “lucky” enough to have been reviewed by the Harriet Klausner account lost that review.

More recently, Amazon have deleted several infamous bookstuffers. I’ve heard rumours that some of the people who’d given their books five-star reviews without pointing out that it was a stuffed book have lost all their reviews. So if you were unlucky enough to have been reviewed by a reviewer who also reviewed books by Chance Carter or Cassandra Dee, then you will have lost those reviews.

Solution: None.

How Do We Prevent Reviews From Being Deleted!

Amazon does occasionally make mistakes when it comes to deleting reviewers, and they are quick to delete and slow to restore. My best advice is to stay under Amazon’s radar: familiarise yourself with the the Amazon Reviewing Guidelines, and stick to them.

If you have specific questions, please let me know in the comments!

 

Iola Goulton…

…is a New Zealand book reviewer, freelance editor, and author, writing contemporary Christian romance with a Kiwi twist. She is a member of the Sisterhood of Unpronounceable Names (Iola is pronounced yo-la, not eye-ola and definitely not Lola).

Iola holds a degree in marketing, has a background in human resource consulting, works as a freelance editor, and has recently introduced the Kick-Start Your Author Platform Marketing Challenge, an email course for authors wanting to establish their online platform. When she’s not working, Iola is usually reading or writing her next book review. Iola lives in the beautiful Bay of Plenty in New Zealand (not far from Hobbiton) with her husband, two teenagers and one cat.

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Find Iola on

Facebook at Iola Goulton Author

and Twitter at @IolaGoulton

or check out her website at http://www.iolagoulton.com

 

For a more detailed plan on developing your book marketing, purchase Rachel’s new book,
The BadRedhead Media 30-Day Book Marketing Challenge now on Amazon!
Already a 5-Star Reader’s Favorite! 

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19 Comments

  1. Jena C Henry on August 5, 2018 at 4:56 am

    Thank you Iola for the info. This is me! I recently lost all my reviews- hundreds of books and also all my other product reviews. I thought I was following the guidelines. I truly enjoy reading and reviewing books. Authors appreciate my reviews, and. nowthey are gone. What bothers me is that there seems to be no effective way to contact Amazon about this to get my reviews back. I have called customer service and was given an email to contact Community Guidelines. I know that some of the authors have also contacted Amazon. So my first question, is what can I do? And my second question is, if I’m ever allowed to review again- what is a “friend”. I interact with many authors on social media. Thank you!

    • Iola on August 7, 2018 at 3:00 pm

      Hi Jena

      I know of some reviewers who have appealed to Amazon and had their reviews reinstated, but I also know others who have asked and their appeal has been rejected. I suspect it’s a matter of patterns: if you’ve reviewed books or products that Amazon has found fake reviews for, then your chances of being reinstated are lower.

      When it comes to building a reviewing platform, reviewing on Amazon is like promoting a book through Facebook – it’s great when it works, but it’s not your platform. Someone else makes the rules. For that reason, I’ve always reviewed on a blog as well. If you’re not currently reviewing on a blog, you could start – that still helps authors. You can also review on a lot of other platforms e.g. BookBub, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble.

      As to what is a “friend” … well, that’s the question no one knows the answer to! I’m also social media friends with a lot of authors. I think it comes down to Amazon’s definition of a “promotional” review, which is something I’m planning to address in a future blog post.

  2. Sean Sumner on August 7, 2018 at 1:00 pm

    Great article, I agree with all the information you presented and am happy to see it laid out so clearly

  3. Raimey Gallant on August 8, 2018 at 8:44 pm

    Super informative!

  4. […] Reviews are a major part of marketing. Frances Caballo tells us how to get new readers and reviews with free book promotion, and Iola Goulton explains how to prevent Amazon from deleting your reviews. […]

  5. Medievalgirl on August 14, 2018 at 1:59 pm

    I’ve had this. All my reviews on my regular Amazon account deleted- and hardly any of them were of review copies. I think there were barely 7 that were, out of like 50 product reviews left over years.

    Not only that, but they won’t let me leave anymore reviews, or comments. No explanation given, just gone. Ironically, Amazon still invite me to review recent purchases too.

  6. Carol Hedges on August 30, 2018 at 12:31 am

    Two things: as a reviewer, I find that logging into my Amazon account BEFORE posting any revis me to review and get round the ‘you have to buy something first. command. Speaking as a reviewed, it does stop the malicious reviews, wherby someone with a grudge can post nasty one-star reviews out of spite. A friend who DARED to criticize J K Rowling’s books in a blog had this happen to her, and was nped by her publisher.o, it is a pain, but there are upsides.

  7. Davida Chazan on September 19, 2018 at 1:22 am

    Interesting article. However, what I see seems missing from this article is the following: “To contribute to Customer features (for example, Customer Reviews, Customer Answers, Idea Lists) or to follow other contributors, you must have spent at least $50 on Amazon.com using a valid credit or debit card in the past 12 months. Promotional discounts don’t qualify towards the $50 minimum. In addition, to contribute to Spark you must also have a paid Prime subscription (free Prime trials do not qualify). You do not need to meet this requirement to read content posted by other contributors or post Customer Questions, or create or modify Profile pages, Shopping Lists, Wish Lists or Registries.” https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201929730

    The same thing is on the UK site: To contribute to Community Features (for example, Customer Reviews, Customer Answers), you must have spent at least £40 on Amazon.co.uk using a valid payment card in the past 12 months. Promotional discounts don’t qualify towards the £40 minimum. You do not need to meet this requirement to post Customer Questions, create or modify Profile pages, Lists, or Registries, or to read content posted by other customers. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201929730

    The only ways I know of to bypass this is if you’re already a VINE reviewer of theirs or if you have your own blog and you are a member of the Amazon affiliate program.

  8. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt on October 17, 2018 at 12:28 pm

    You can ask reviewers to follow the pattern of mentioning that they received the book for free, and not say it was an exchange, but you do NOT control what reviewers actually do or write. Them’s the breaks.

    I know I have several reviews, nice reviews, where the current ‘rules’ are not observed, and that they may disappear some day. When you have only 40 reviews, it shows when one disappears!

    Stewing over the problem isn’t useful. But it is hard for those of us who go to a great deal of trouble to approach individuals who blog or review, to then find a good review removed. The answer is to put in the effort to generate more reviews (if that’s what you want), but the energy for that comes from the energy I use to write, and I don’t have much every day.

    Not complaining, just saying.

  9. Sara Stewart on November 30, 2018 at 2:24 am

    It’s too bad they refuse to delete reviews by a family/friend who reviewed out of malice. Seems only good reviews are removed if it’s someone you know

    • Rachel Thompson on December 3, 2018 at 1:05 pm

      I agree, Sara. Amazon has a ‘report abuse’ button though they rarely do anything about it. I have the same situation with several reviews of my books where they are outright ad hominem attacks and have nothing at all to do with the books. I’ve talked with Amazon and they say they’ll ‘review,’ but take no action. It is what it is. That’s the nature of the platform.

      Good news: there are so many more positive reviews and readers are smart. They can see a personal attack vs. an actual critical review. Just keep writing and moving forward. x

  10. Stephen Bentley on February 8, 2019 at 2:16 am

    Excellent guest post. Factually correct and informative! That makes such a change from so much stuff out there in relation to Amazon book reviews.

    I wrote a blog post in similar vein earlier today at https://www.stephenbentley.info/now-hear-this-there-are-no-new-amazon-reviewer-policies/

    Thank you for spreading accurate information.

  11. BECCA WEIDEL on February 8, 2019 at 4:40 pm

    Thanks for sharing this! I was one of the ones to have my reviews removed and was blocked from new reviews but thankfully after a few appeals I was able to get my rights restored. Fingers crossed it doesn’t happen again!

  12. Kathy Steinemann on February 8, 2020 at 12:01 pm

    Thanks, Iola. An even better link is:

    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079WSKYKZ/

  13. Diane Buie on February 17, 2020 at 11:25 am

    Thanks for the info! I needed it today!

  14. Amber Adams on February 8, 2021 at 2:22 am

    This is a great Post with many helpful tips about Book Reviews Deletion Prevention on Amazon but not quite what I was looking for. Would is be possible for you to write up a Post similar to this one but for other products on Amazon that are NOT SOLD BY AMAZON? I am seeking a helpful Post like this one for General Products and Products of all types because MANY, MANY Reviews for all types of Products have been being deleted for no real reason. It would be very helpful to me and many others if you’d write a Post for How to Prevent Review Deletion on products other than just Books.

  15. elizabeth.gauffreau@comcast.net on December 12, 2022 at 5:21 am

    I’m getting bookstagrammers messaging me saying they want to review one of my books to post on Amazon and Goodreads–if I pay them $20 or $40. Needless to say, I tell them no. How are they getting away with this with Amazon?

    • Rachel Thompson on December 30, 2022 at 10:30 am

      Hi Elizabeth! OMG aren’t they annoying? I clear them out of all my accounts and clients every week.

      Sadly most are scammers who just want a copy of your book to either upload to a pirate site or to somehow get your personal info somehow (e.g., click on this link and blah blah blah). Doubtful most will follow through to get a review on Amazon and here’s why: anyone who wants to review on Amazon must spend $50 or $75 (can’t recall the exact amount) per calendar year in order to have that ability. Most bookstagram spammers do not. Report, block, or just ignore. x

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