How to ask for Google reviews without breaking the rules.

The rules in one list

Google's policy for reviews on Maps is stricter than most owners expect, and stricter than the FTC's rule. These are the things it does not allow a business to do:

• Ask only the customers you expect to be happy, or discourage negative reviews. This is review gating.
• Offer anything in return for a review, or for changing or removing one: money, a discount, a free item, an entry into a prize draw.
• Require or pressure customers to review while they are on the premises.
• Tell customers what to write, such as a keyword, your town or a star rating.
• Set staff a target number of reviews to collect.
• Post or ask for reviews from current or former staff, family or anyone else with a conflict of interest, or review a competitor.
• Post reviews from several accounts, or have one person post them for others.

What is fine, and what Google itself suggests: asking customers for reviews, sharing your review link or QR code by email, a WhatsApp message, a receipt or a printed card, replying to reviews, and valuing the bad ones as feedback.

Google bans every reward for a review, whatever the review says. The FTC's rule bans only rewards tied to what the review says, but on Google it is Google's policy that removes reviews and restricts profiles.

Review gating, and why tools still sell it

Gating looks like this. After the job, the customer gets a message: "How did we do? Tap a star." Four or five stars open the Google review page. One to three stars open a private form that goes to the owner. The owner hears the complaints, and the public sees only praise.

Google's policy forbids exactly this: it bans selectively asking for positive reviews and discouraging negative ones. In the US, the FTC's rule has no clause on gating as such, but FTC staff say the practice could break the FTC Act, which bans deceptive practices.

Some review tools and CRM add-ons still offer it as a setting, under names that never say gating. Look for anything that sends customers to different places depending on their score, or that holds back the review link until they answer a survey.

You can still invite complaints in private, as long as everyone also gets the review link, whatever they answer. One message to every customer can carry both: a line saying to reply if something was not right, and the review link.

No rewards, however small

Google's policy treats a review given in exchange for an incentive as fake engagement, and names payment, discounts and free goods or services. Each of these breaks it:

• "Leave us a review and get money off your next visit."
• A prize draw that everyone who writes a review enters.
• A free coffee, dessert or car wash for showing the server a review.
• A refund or a voucher offered to a customer who changes a bad review.

The FTC's rule bans rewards that depend on a review being positive or negative, whether that is said outright or implied. It does not ban a reward for an honest review of any kind, but FTC staff say an undisclosed reward can still break the FTC Act. None of that matters on Google, which bans all of it.

Thank customers for their reviews after they post them, in your reply, and stop there.

Staff, family and the owner

Google's policy rules out reviews based on a conflict of interest, and names current or former employment and family relationships among its examples. So the owner, the staff, the owner's mother and the staff's partners should not review the business, however much they love it. The same goes for reviewing a competitor.

The FTC's rule covers the same ground from another side. An owner or manager who reviews their own business without saying so breaks it, and asking staff or their relatives for reviews without a disclosure can break it too. A general request sent to every customer is fine, even if a member of staff happens to be one of them.

Tell your team in writing: nobody who works here, or has, reviews this business or its competitors. Put it in the staff handbook next to the rules on social media.

Do not write a review for a customer who says "you write it and I will post it" either. A review in your words is your review, whoever posts it.

How to ask in person without pressure

Google's policy says businesses should not require or pressure customers to review while they are on the premises, and should not ask for specific content. That still leaves room for a normal request:

• A QR code on the counter, on the bill or on a card handed over with the finished job. Google suggests printed QR codes itself.
• One sentence at the end: "If you were happy with it, a review on Google helps us." Then move on.
• Not fine: handing over a tablet and waiting while they type, or asking them to mention "best physio in Bath".

Google also lists setting staff targets for a number of reviews as something businesses should not do. A team with a quota starts to push, and the pushing is what the rule is about.

Restaurants have it easiest: a QR code in the bill folder asks everyone, every time. See what else a restaurant needs from its website and messages.

The FTC rule in the US, in plain words

The FTC's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials took effect on 21 October 2024, and it lets courts impose civil penalties for knowing breaches. It bans six things:

• Fake reviews and testimonials: from people who do not exist or never used the business, or that misstate their experience, when the business knew or should have known.
• Buying reviews: offering pay or another reward for a review with a particular sentiment, positive or negative.
• Insider reviews without a clear disclosure, such as reviews by owners and managers.
• Review websites controlled by the business that claim to be independent.
• Review suppression: unfounded legal threats, physical threats, intimidation or false public accusations used to stop or remove a review.
• Fake social media signals, such as bought followers or views.

In December 2025 the FTC sent warning letters to ten companies about possible breaches. For a small business the practical reading is short: never invent a review, never pay for one, never threaten anyone over one. This is a summary, not legal advice, so ask your own adviser about your case.

In the UK and the EU

In the UK, fake reviews have been a banned practice under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act since 6 April 2025. The CMA's guidance covers writing or commissioning fake reviews, and reviews that hide that they were rewarded. It gives a discount for a five-star review as one example, and says that asking for reviews without dictating what they say is fine.

In the EU, the 2019 changes to consumer law ban submitting fake reviews or paying someone else to. They also require a business that shows reviews to say whether and how it checks that they come from real customers. That second rule matters if you put reviews on your own website: say where they come from, such as your Google profile, and how you check them.

Your own adviser or trade body can tell you how these apply to your business.

Reviews you show on your own website

Copying reviews onto your own website brings rules of its own. FTC staff say a business that puts testimonials on its own site is publishing them itself, so a fake or altered one is the business's problem, not the reviewer's.

• Quote real reviews word for word, with the reviewer's first name and the date, and say where each was posted.
• Never edit a review to make it say more than it did.
• If you show a selection, do not present it as all your reviews or as typical of them.
• In the EU, say where the reviews come from and how you check that they come from real customers.

The simplest version is a link to your Google reviews next to the booking button, where visitors can read the good and the bad for themselves. What a small business website needs recommends the same.

A review request automation that stays inside the rules

Automating the request is the easiest way to ask everyone the same way, which is what the rules want. Built well, it works like this:

• It starts when a job is marked done or an invoice is paid, for every customer, with no score filter in between.
• One message, in the name of the person the customer dealt with, with your Google review link straight after the thank-you.
• One reminder at most, a few days later.
• A line inviting a reply if something went wrong, with replies going to a person who can fix it.
• Nobody is left out for being difficult. Leaving out unhappy customers is the selective asking Google bans.
• Anyone who said no to messages never gets one.

An example for a cleaning company, sent the morning after a clean: "Hi Sam, thanks for having us on Thursday. If you have a minute, a Google review helps other people find us. Here is the link. If anything was not right, reply to this message and I will sort it. Ana, Brightside Cleaning."

Reviewers post under their own Google names, so you cannot reliably match a review to a customer, and the reminder cannot know who has already posted one. Word it so it reads fine either way, and keep it to one.

Where the rules require permission for messages like these, ask for it at booking and keep the answer with the customer's record. Text messages have consent rules of their own in many places. A clinic's request should mention the visit and never the treatment; see what else changes for dental clinics.

Our automation work includes review requests like this one, sent once an invoice is paid, and the first automations to set up shows where it fits among the others.

Check what your review tool is doing

Run through your current setup with these questions:

• Does every finished customer get the Google link, whatever they answered in any survey?
• Does the tool hide the link behind a star rating or a satisfaction question?
• Does any message offer a reward, a draw or money off?
• Does any message tell customers what to write?
• Has anyone on the team, past or present, reviewed the business?
• Do staff have a target for reviews?
• Where are opt-outs kept, and does the tool respect them?

Any answer you would not want to explain to Google needs fixing before the next request goes out.

What happens when Google finds fake or rewarded reviews

Google removes reviews that break its policy, and it can restrict the whole profile. Its help lists what that can mean: no new reviews for a set period, existing reviews unpublished for a set period, and a warning on the profile telling customers that fake reviews were removed. Google says it emails the owner before it applies a restriction, and an owner who thinks Google got it wrong can appeal.

That warning costs more than any number of reviews could be worth. A profile with honest reviews, including a few bad ones with good replies, reads as real, and Google's own tips say balanced feedback helps people decide.

Be wary of anyone who offers to deliver a number of five-star reviews, or to "boost your rating" for a monthly fee. Whatever they call it, they are selling what Google's policy and the FTC's rule both ban, and the profile that pays for it is yours.

How to answer the bad ones is in our guide to replying to Google reviews.