To support greater transparency to the full timeline history of each review, the LocalClarity platform is now documenting the initial fetch time (the time the platform first records receipt into our database). A number of LocalClarity clients recently reported an apparent issue. They had responded to all negative reviews from the prior week, but now they see in the ReviewsInbox™ a 'new' review from last week that does have a response.

This situation is typically caused by a publishing and/or editorial review delay at Google. For some reason, Google holds the review and then decides to release it with the original create timestamp. In order to provide visibility to both the create date and the release date, we have added a new field call FetchDate(UTC).

Details

At times Google will hold a review before publishing it. Most often Google is reviewing the review for any malicious or spam content before posting. When posted, the review has its original date-  creating issues in responding to reviews systematically, as a review that was held could be missed.

This is why LocalClarity has added the Fetch(UTC) date in the Review Download file. This shows the time that Google released the review and LocalClarity received it. The Fetch date combined with the Date(UTC) and CreateDate(UTC) time provided gives a complete history of the review and removes any guesswork as to why the review was initially not responded to.

What's Next

We are excited to continue rolling out enhancements to our ReviewsInbox to ensure the highest level of data integrity for our clients.