Google has clear rules about how businesses can ask for reviews. Most are common sense, but a few catch businesses out. Here's what's allowed and what isn't.
What Google allows
- Asking customers to leave an honest review, by email, text, in person, or with a sign in your shop.
- Sending a direct link to your Google review page to make it easier to leave a review.
- Asking for reviews from any customer, regardless of whether their experience was positive or negative.
What Google prohibits
- Offering a discount, freebie, or any incentive in exchange for a review, positive or otherwise.
- Asking customers to leave only positive reviews, or asking them to remove a negative one in exchange for something.
- Posting fake reviews, or reviews of your own business from staff, friends, or family.
- Gating reviews so unhappy customers are blocked from leaving a public review entirely.
Staying compliant
The safest approach is to ask every customer the same way, with no incentive attached, and let the review reflect their real experience. Tools that route unhappy customers to private feedback are fine, as long as those customers could still find and use Google's review page themselves if they wanted to. Nothing should actively block them.