Google removed school reviews. What builds trust now.

For years, a school’s Google rating did quiet work. A parent typed the school’s name, saw 4.5 stars from a few hundred families and felt reassured before she ever picked up the phone. Many schools printed that rating on brochures and hoardings.

That signal is gone for primary and secondary schools. If you open your school’s listing today, there are no stars and no review count. This is not a glitch in your account and it is not coming back. Here is what changed, where trust moved, and the seven things we now set up for schools instead.

What exactly Google changed

On 30 April 2025, Google removed all reviews and ratings from Business Profiles in the General Education Schools category, which covers primary and secondary schools, government and private, everywhere in the world. Existing reviews were deleted and parents can no longer post new ones. Coverage of the change put it down to Google cutting unhelpful and prank reviews, which school listings attracted more than most.

Type of institution	Google reviews and stars today
K-12 day and boarding schools (General Education Schools category)	Removed on 30 April 2025, new reviews switched off
Preschools, play schools and daycare	Still shown
Colleges and universities	Still shown
Coaching institutes and tutoring centres	Usually still shown, depends on the category the listing uses

One more change matters here. Since late 2025, Google has been retiring the questions and answers section on Business Profiles (its Q&A API was switched off on 3 November 2025). Questions about a business are increasingly answered by Google’s AI, which builds the answer from your profile details, photos, your website and other sources it trusts. So the two places where a school used to manage its public image inside Google, reviews and Q&A, have both shrunk.

Why this matters more than it looks

It is tempting to see this as neutral. Every school in your area lost its stars on the same day, so nobody gained. That reading misses three things.

• The play school next door still has stars. A parent comparing your pre-primary wing with a standalone preschool sees ratings on one listing and nothing on yours. If your pre-primary sits under the main school listing, it inherits the blank.
• Ten years of goodwill was wiped. Schools that patiently built hundreds of genuine reviews lost the advantage. Schools with a poor rating lost the penalty. The field got flatter, which helps weaker schools and hurts stronger ones.
• The conversation moved somewhere you cannot see. On Google you could at least read what was said and reply. In a society WhatsApp group you usually cannot do either.

The schools that will come out ahead are the ones that rebuild those trust signals on ground they control, and do it before the 2027-28 admission season peaks.

Where parents check a school now

Parents did not stop asking other parents. The question just travels through different channels, and each one needs a different response.

Where	What happens there	How much control you have
Class and society WhatsApp groups	“Anyone’s child at this school? How are the teachers?”	Almost none, except through your current parents
Society and city Facebook groups	Recommendations, and complaints posted in public	Some, you can reply where the post is public
Listing sites such as Justdial	Ratings and reviews still exist for schools here	Moderate, you can claim the listing, correct details and reply
AI assistants (ChatGPT, Gemini, Google’s AI answers)	“Best CBSE school near Sector 50” returns a short list of names	Indirect, they repeat what your website and listings say
Your own website and Instagram	The parent checks whether your claims hold up	Full

Notice the pattern. The less control you have over a channel, the more it depends on two things you do control: what your website says, and how your current parents feel.

Seven things that build trust now

1. Make your Google listing complete and correct

The listing still matters. It is what shows on the map, it carries your phone number and directions, and it feeds Google’s AI answers. Without stars, the details are all a parent has to judge you on, so get them right.

• Search your school’s name and area. If you see more than one listing, claim the duplicates and get them merged or removed. Old listings with a 2016 landline number confuse parents and split your photos.
• Use one exact school name, address and phone number everywhere: Google, your website, Facebook, Instagram and listing sites.
• Fill every field: category, classes, board, hours, admission office timings, website link and accessibility details.
• Replace old photos with current ones every term: classrooms in use, the gate, transport, labs, sports. No stock images.
• Post updates on the profile during admission season: open house dates, the admission form link, visit timings.

2. Build a real FAQ page on your website

With Q&A fading out of Google, your website is where questions get answered, for parents and for the AI tools that summarise you. Write down the twenty questions your counsellor answers every day, word for word as parents ask them, and answer each in two or three plain sentences. Board, classes, timings, transport areas, fee range, documents for admission, class size, how complaints are handled. Our SEO for schools guide shows how to structure these pages so they get found.

3. Put testimonials on your own site, and make them specific

Reviews used to be your third party proof. Now you have to host the proof yourself, which means it has to be more convincing than a star rating was. A parent saying “very good school, supportive teachers” proves nothing. A parent saying “my son was scared of maths in Class 4, and by Class 6 he was helping his cousin with fractions” proves something.

• Ask for a story, not praise: what worried you before admission, and what changed after.
• Use the parent’s name, the child’s class and, with written consent, a photo or a short video. A face is harder to doubt than text.
• Let one testimonial include something the parent wishes the school did better. It makes the rest believable.
• Collect them three months after joining, not in the week of admission.

4. Publish proof parents can check

Without stars, parents look harder at the claims you make about yourself. Give them claims they can verify:

• Results with the denominator. “58 of 60 students passed with first division” is more believable than “100 per cent result”, because everyone writes the second one.
• Faculty details. Names, subjects, qualifications and years at the school.
• A fee range with what is included. Parents find your fees in WhatsApp groups anyway. On your site they get the context.
• Transport routes in plain text. Parents search for their society name.

5. Handle complaints where parents actually post them

Complaints did not disappear with the reviews. They moved to Instagram comments, your own Facebook page, society groups and listing sites. Parents reading those threads often care more about your reply than the complaint itself, because the reply is the school’s official character.

Keep replies short, three or four lines. Acknowledge the concern without admitting fault or arguing. Never share a child’s or family’s details. Move the conversation offline with a named person and a number. For example: “Thank you for raising this, it matters to us. This is not the standard we hold ourselves to. Please call our coordinator, Ms Sharma, on the admission office number and we will look into it.” Where you cannot reply, such as a private WhatsApp group, call the parent directly.

Never argue in public. A reply that says “this parent had not paid fees” turns one complaint into a screenshot that circulates for years. Calm and specific always wins.

6. Claim your listings on other sites

Listing sites such as Justdial still show ratings and reviews for schools in India, and parents still land on them from search. Claim your school’s listing, correct the name, address, phone and fee details, add current photos and reply to what is posted there in the same calm format. Inconsistent details across these sites are one of the reasons AI assistants give vague or wrong answers about a school.

7. Give your current parents something to forward

Your current parents are now your review section. They answer the “how is this school?” question in groups you will never see. Make their answer easy and specific: a short clip of their child’s class activity after an event, a clear one page fee and admission sheet they can forward, the open house date in a single message. Ask for referrals at moments when parents are happy, such as after a good PTM or results. Our month-by-month admission plan shows when to do this in the season.

If you also run a preschool or a coaching wing

Preschools, colleges and most coaching listings still carry Google reviews. If your pre-primary or coaching vertical is a separate unit with its own address or entrance, check which category its listing uses and whether reviews still show. Do not guess; open the listing and look.

For those listings, reviews still matter and the old rules still apply: ask real parents or students at good moments, make it easy with one short link, reply to every review including the critical ones, and never buy reviews or offer incentives for them. Our preschool marketing page covers this for early years.

Two things not to do

• Do not switch your category to get stars back. Some schools have relabelled their K-12 listing as a tutoring service or learning centre to bring reviews back. It misrepresents what you are, risks action against the listing, and stops you appearing when parents search for schools. It trades your most important search for a number of stars.
• Do not pay anyone to “improve your school’s Google rating”. For K-12 there is no rating to improve. An agency still selling this has either not read the update or is hoping you have not. It is a useful test when you are choosing one, along with the other questions in our agency checklist.

A 30-day plan

Week	Do this	Owner
Week 1	Search your school’s name. Merge or remove duplicate listings. Fix name, address and phone everywhere.	Admin or marketing lead
Week 2	Write the FAQ page from the counsellor’s twenty daily questions. Add a fee range and transport routes in text.	Counsellor and marketing lead
Week 3	Record three parent testimonials with written consent. Publish results with the denominator and faculty details.	Principal and coordinator
Week 4	Claim listing sites and correct details. Write a short complaint reply guide for staff. Refresh profile photos.	Marketing lead

None of this needs a large budget. It needs one person who owns it and a deadline before the admission season peaks, which for most schools means finishing by early December.

Questions we get asked

Related: SEO for schools · Website and local SEO · School admission marketing ideas · Preschool marketing