Google Review Policy: What Businesses Can and Cannot Do

The Google review policy lets businesses ask any customer for an honest review, share a review link or QR code, and reply to reviews. It prohibits incentives, asking only happy customers, discouraging negative reviews, reviews from staff or anyone with a conflict of interest, and paid or fake reviews. Breaking it can lead to removed reviews and profile restrictions.

The main rules are in the Google Maps user-contributed content policy, which covers every review, rating and photo posted on Maps and Search. Google Business Profile Help adds practical guidance for owners on asking for reviews, replying and reporting.

The content policy groups banned material into categories. For businesses, the most relevant are fake and misleading content (which includes fake engagement and rating manipulation), impersonation, harassment, personal information, off-topic content, and advertising and solicitation. Some rules apply to reviewers, such as no links or phone numbers inside a review. Others apply directly to "merchants", meaning the business itself and anyone acting for it.

You can ask any customer for a review, as long as you ask everyone in the same way and let them write what they want. Google's own help page says businesses can ask customers to visit a Google link or scan a QR code.

Printed prompts are allowed because they only open the review form. The customer still chooses the star rating and the words. For the detail on this point, see are review cards allowed by Google.

Google prohibits anything that makes reviews less genuine: paying or rewarding people for reviews, filtering who gets asked, discouraging criticism and reviews from people with a conflict of interest. The table below sets common practices against the policy wording.

No. Google bans incentives for reviews outright, even when you ask for an honest opinion and the reward does not depend on the rating. Its help page describes offering free or discounted goods or services in exchange for reviews as fake and misleading content that is "strictly prohibited".

This is stricter than US federal law. The FTC's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, in force since October 21, 2024, bans incentives that are conditioned on a positive or negative sentiment, but the FTC says it does not ban every incentive. On Google, that difference does not help: a reward of any kind breaks Google's policy. Our article on the FTC Consumer Review Rule covers the legal side in more depth.

The same applies after a review is posted. Offering a refund, voucher or gift in return for editing or deleting a negative review is listed as prohibited. You can still fix a customer's problem; just do not attach it to the review.

Yes. Review gating means screening customers first and sending only the happy ones to Google, and Google's policy says merchants may not selectively solicit positive reviews or discourage negative ones.

Gating is often built into software without the owner realising: a "How did we do?" screen sends five-star answers to Google and everyone else to a private form. A private feedback form is not banned in itself, but if it decides who sees your Google link, it works as a filter. Our guide to review gating explains how to spot and remove it.

Not for your own business. Google's policy treats reviews from people with a conflict of interest as rating manipulation, and gives current or former employment, contractual relationships and family relationships as examples.

Staff can and should ask customers for reviews; they just cannot write them. Google's policy also names two staff practices as off limits: asking staff to collect a set number of reviews, and asking staff to get reviews that include specific content. Telling customers what to write, or asking them to mention a team member by name, falls into that territory. Our guide on training staff to ask for reviews ethically shows how to keep requests consistent without quotas or scripts.

Google removes the reviews that break the policy and can restrict the whole Business Profile. Its help page lists examples of restrictions, applied in addition to removing the reviews:

Google says it emails the owner before applying a restriction and that businesses can appeal. The content policy also allows Google to limit feature access or disable accounts for broader abuse.

Regulators are pushing in the same direction. On January 24, 2025, the UK Competition and Markets Authority announced commitments from Google to place warning alerts on UK business profiles that boost ratings with fake reviews, to switch off new reviews for them, and to delete all reviews for repeat offenders for six months or more. Google also told the CMA it planned to extend its sanctions to businesses outside the UK. Fake reviews can also break consumer law, as our guides to the UK DMCC Act and the FTC rule explain.

Report it to Google rather than arguing in public. Google only removes reviews that break its policies, so a review you disagree with will usually stay.

While you wait, a short, calm reply is usually better than silence. See how to respond to Google reviews for example replies, and fake reviews and how to protect your business for spotting attacks.

Ask every customer in the same way, at the end of the visit, with a link that opens your review form, and nothing in return. That approach fits Google's policy and the main consumer-protection laws at the same time.

For counters and front desks, a printed prompt does the asking consistently. A Google review card carries your review link on an NFC chip, with an optional printed QR code, and arrives pre-programmed for a one-off price with no subscription. Hand it to every customer, not only the regulars. You can find more guides on incentives, gating and consumer law in our review rules topic hub.