How to use testimonials and reviews on your website within the rules.

The short answer

You can show Google reviews on your website in three ways, and each has its own rules:

• Link to them. A button or a line that opens your Google reviews needs nobody's permission, and it shows the good with the bad.
• Quote them. Copy a review onto a page, word for word, with the reviewer's name as shown, the date and "Google review". Ask the reviewer first.
• Embed them. A widget pulls reviews from Google onto the page, and it has to follow Google's rules for showing its data.

Whichever you choose, the same rules apply to every testimonial on your site, from a Google review to a thank-you email: it must be real, it must say what the person meant, you need their permission, and it must not suggest results most customers do not get. The rest of this guide takes those one at a time.

On your website, a review becomes your advertising

A review on Google belongs to the customer. Copied onto your website, it becomes part of your marketing, and the rules for ads apply to it. In the US, FTC staff draw the line plainly: a business that puts testimonials on its own site is spreading them, not merely hosting them, and if they are fake or false, the business can be liable. Reviews featured in marketing count as testimonials.

Two things follow. You can choose your favourite reviews for the home page, but FTC staff warn that featuring reviews that are not representative can still be deceptive. And on a part of your site that collects and shows what customers submit, the FTC's rule bars you from suggesting it shows all or most of them while you hold back the negative ones.

In the EU, a business that shows consumer reviews must say whether and how it checks that they come from real customers, and in the UK the advertising code covers testimonials too. The review request rules cover the European side in more detail.

Ask permission, and keep the answer

The words in a review belong to the person who wrote them. Google's terms say users keep the rights in what they post, and the licence they give Google does not extend to the business being reviewed. Asking first is the honest way to borrow them. In the UK, the advertising code says marketing must not feature a testimonial without permission, with narrow exceptions for accurate statements from published sources.

A message that takes ten seconds to answer:

"Thanks for your review on Google, Rob. Could we quote it on our website, with your first name and town? A yes or a no by reply is perfect, either is fine."

Keep the reply with a note of where you used the quote. The UK code also expects advertisers to hold evidence that a testimonial is genuine and contact details for the person who gave it, and the saved message covers both. If someone later asks you to take theirs down, do it the same day.

Photos and videos need their own yes. A customer happy to be quoted may not want their face, their house or their car on your home page.

Names, initials and photos

A testimonial reads as real when the reader can picture the person. Use what the customer agreed to, and nothing more:

• First name and town, such as "Rob, Sheffield", is the usual choice for a local business.
• Initials suit private matters, such as "J.M., Leeds" on an accountant's site. Keep your own record of who it was.
• A full name and a company name suit work for other businesses, where the reader may want to check.
• A photo only if it is the customer's own and they agreed to it.

Never put a stock photo next to a real quote, and never add a name to a quote that came without one. Both make the testimonial claim to be someone it is not. For the same reason, delete the sample testimonials that come with website templates, the "Jane Doe, CEO" kind, before the site goes live.

Trimming a quote without changing it

Long reviews need cutting, and cutting is allowed. The FTC's Endorsement Guides say an ad need not use an endorser's exact words unless it presents them as exact, for example with quotation marks, and that an endorsement must not be taken out of context or reworded in a way that distorts the person's opinion or experience.

So the test for any cut is whether the customer would recognise their own view in what is left. Two examples:

• Fine: "Sam rewired the whole kitchen in two days, cleaned up after himself and explained everything. I'd use them again." cut to "Sam rewired the whole kitchen in two days... I'd use them again."
• Not fine: "Lovely on the phone. Shame the work itself had to be redone by someone else." cut to "Lovely on the phone."

Mark every cut with three dots, keep the customer's spelling unless they agree to a correction, and never add a word they did not write. If a review mentions a problem you later fixed, quote a different review rather than cutting the problem out.

Three ways to show Google reviews

Each of the three options works, for different sites:

• A link. Put a line such as "Read our Google reviews" next to the booking or quote button, linking to your reviews. To link to one review in particular, open it in Google Maps and use Share review to copy its link. This is the simplest choice and the only one that never goes out of date.
• A quote. Copy one or two reviews onto the pages where people decide, such as a service page or the quote form, with the name as shown, the date, "Google review" and a link to the original. Ask first, and swap them for newer ones every few months.
• A widget. A box on the page fills itself with reviews from Google. Choose one with care, because Google sets rules for showing its data, covered in the next section.

What a small business website needs shows where reviews sit best on each page.

Review widgets: what to check before you install one

Widgets that use Google's Places API have to follow Google's policies for that data. The ones that matter here:

• Credit the author of every review. Where space allows, show their name, photo and a link to their profile; at the very least, their photo.
• Show the Google logo, or the words Google Maps where space is short, when the reviews appear without a Google map.
• Link to each review on Google Maps.
• Explain how the reviews shown are ordered and filtered. By default, Google orders them by relevance.
• Do not store the reviews beyond what the policies allow.

Ask any widget seller whether it uses Google's official API and follows those rules. Be wary of one that copies and stores reviews, lets you hide the low ones, or labels a hand-picked selection as "what our customers say". Load it only on the pages that need it: a widget from another company adds code to the page and can slow it down on a phone.

Yelp and Trustpilot have their own options. Yelp encourages businesses to embed favourite Yelp reviews and link back to their Yelp page, and Trustpilot's widgets depend on your plan. See Yelp for a small business and Trustpilot for a small business.

Results that are not typical

A testimonial about a result tells readers they can expect the same. The FTC's Endorsement Guides say an ad featuring a customer's experience with a key feature is likely to be read as showing what customers generally achieve. If you cannot back that up, the ad should clearly say what customers can generally expect, in a way that changes the impression. A line in small print saying results vary does not do that.

This matters most where results are the product:

• A personal trainer quoting a client who dropped three dress sizes before her wedding.
• A tutor quoting a student who went from failing to top of the class in a term.
• An accountant quoting a client whose tax bill fell sharply after switching.
• A clinic quoting a patient whose back pain went after two sessions.

If your records show what most clients achieve, say it next to the story: "Most of our students move up one grade over a school year. Priya moved up three." If you do not know what most clients achieve, choose testimonials about how you work, such as being on time, explaining things and returning calls.

Claims about health need more than a testimonial. The guides say customer endorsements are not themselves competent and reliable scientific evidence, so a clinic still needs proper evidence for whatever a patient's story implies.

Say when the person is connected to you

A testimonial from someone linked to the business needs that link stated plainly, or it should not be there. The FTC's rule bans testimonials from insiders, including officers and managers, that do not clearly disclose their connection to the business, and FTC guidance treats a discount or a free service given for a review as a connection too. In practice:

• Staff, family and friends: leave them out. If your sister-in-law's kind words are on the site, say she is family, or take them down.
• A customer who got the job at a discount or for free: say so next to the quote, or use someone else's.
• A business partner or a supplier: name the relationship, such as "our electrical supplier for ten years".

Never write a testimonial yourself, and never ask a tool to write sample ones for you to fill in. In the US, the FTC's rule has banned fake testimonials, including AI-generated ones and ones from people who do not exist, since 21 October 2024.

When we write a site's pages with a client, we never invent reviews, numbers or claims the client cannot back up; it is part of how our websites are written.

Trades with stricter rules

Some trades have rules on top of the general ones. This is a summary, not advice: check with your regulator or adviser before you publish.

• Law firms in the US: state bar rules decide whether and how you can use client testimonials. North Carolina's bar, for example, allows testimonials about how a lawyer treated a client without a disclaimer, requires one for testimonials about results, and bans specific dollar amounts in them. Check your own state's rules first; our page for law firms covers the rest of a firm's website.
• Investment advisers registered with the SEC: the SEC's marketing rule allows testimonials, with disclosures that include whether the person is a client and whether they were paid. Insurance agents and mortgage brokers should check their own regulator's rules before quoting clients.
• Clinics in the US: a patient's story or photo on your website tells the world they were your patient, and HIPAA generally requires the patient's written authorisation before their health information is used in marketing. In Europe, health details are special category data under the GDPR. Get written consent that says where the testimonial or photo will appear.
• Before and after photos: the patient's own photos with written consent, the same light and angle in both, no editing beyond cropping, and a line on what most patients can expect. Our page for aesthetic clinics covers the rest of a clinic's site.

Choosing which ones to show

Picking the reviews that answer a new customer's doubts is normal marketing. These habits keep it honest:

• Pick for usefulness. A review that mentions parking, punctuality or how a problem was handled answers a real question.
• Show the source: "Google review, March 2026" with a link lets readers check.
• Put a link to all your reviews next to the selection, so nobody can say you hid the rest.
• Date each one, and take down testimonials about services you no longer offer or staff who have left.

Swap old quotes for new ones as they arrive. A home page quote from five years ago tells a visitor that nobody has said anything nice since.

A check before you publish a testimonial

• Is it real, from a real customer, about the service it sits next to?
• Do you have their permission, and is it saved?
• Does the name match what they agreed to?
• If you cut it, would they recognise their own view?
• If it describes a result, have you said what customers generally get?
• Is any connection to the business disclosed?
• Does it say where it came from, with a date?
• For a clinic, a law firm or an adviser, does it meet your trade's own rules?