Amazon Review Not Showing Up | Explanation and Solution

Amazon review not showing up, help!

If you are reading this my guess is either you are an Amazon seller that is desperate to see their review count grow or, you are an enthusiastic buyer hellbent on having your experience and opinion known.

Regardless, the reasons for reviews not posting are the same.

Amazon review not showing up – how long should it take?

Reviews on Amazon aren’t automatically published in real time. Instead, they are checked for any policy violations before they are published. 

From experience, reviews can take anywhere from one day to two weeks to appear on a listing. 

A typical delay is 2-3 days.

Annoyingly, reviews can appear and disappear from listings seemingly randomly, and without notification. Consequently, it’s important to regularly monitor your listings. 

If you have a large number of listings, software such as Helium 10 can assist you with this task, by notifying you when there is a feedback change to a listing.

Reasons why an Amazon review may not show up

Largely, the reason will be because the review is thought to be manipulated to help the seller or, the review content doesn’t conform to the rules.

Reason 1: Review contains profanities, extreme opinion or is otherwise unsuitable

Amazon keeps its platform available for all ages and does not allow swearing or profanities in reviews. Similarly, any opinion that may be considered extreme or insensitive is not allowed. 

If you are attempting to leave a review, ensure the language is suitable for all ages and on topic.

Reason 2: Review is about shipping, delivery or off topic

Product reviews on product listings are designed to discuss the product. While comments on delivery and shipping are certainly valid in my opinion, these are often considered ‘seller feedback’ and may be removed. However, this isn’t always the case.

If you are having trouble posting a review, ensure you talk solely about the product.

Reason 3: Review acquisition rate is too high

A concern for the sellers, if your sales:reviews ratio is greater than 10:1 or 10%, Amazon may consider it unusually high. 

This figure is purely from experience and community knowledge, the official figure is not public knowledge. 

Importantly, don’t attempt to gather 1000 reviews the day your product is launched – this is clearly artificial. At best, Amazon will not show the reviews. At worst, your account can be suspended or banned!

Of course there are sellers that will get away with it, but I sure like to stay safe. 

If you are looking to maximise your review count, have a read of The Best Way to Get Product Reviews on Amazon

Reason 4: Review is believed to be incentivised 

Amazon’s review policy evolves continually, with the definition of an incentivised review being adjusted. Be sure to stay up to date, here’s the latest from their website.

Things to avoid include:

• Don’t offer a monetary reward for a review.
• Don’t offer a discount or bonus for a review.
• Don’t ask for a positive review, but asking for just a review is fine.
• Don’t deliberately direct positive feedback to the Amazon review system and negative feedback to some other system such as a company email (you can get away with careful wording around this but know how close to the line you are operating!).

Reason 5: Reviewer is related to Seller

Amazon is very good at tracing buyer/seller relationships. Whether it be through mutual addresses, IP tracing or something else.

Asking friends or family for an honest review of your product is certainly a grey area at best. If you were to do this, be very careful. 

The safest way would be to ensure the buyer has a different name, address and computer (IP address). Purchasing through a VPN like ExpressVPN is the safest method, due to its ability to mask your location and change your IP address.

As an aside, I would recommend using a VPN for an increasing amount of things online for its security benefits.

Amazon review policy and guidelines

For a quick refresh on the latest policy see below:

Have a read of the community guidelines for further guidance on how you should approach contributions to the Amazon platform.

Parting thoughts | Amazon review not showing up

If a review is not showing up, be prepared to wait for up to two weeks as it filters through the system. If it still isn’t showing up, it has probably been flagged as in breach of policy. If so, revise until it complies with the above points.

I hope this helps.

Take care,