Google's Review Policy for Businesses: What You Can (and Can't) Do

Google has tightened enforcement of its review rules significantly. Reviews that violate policy get quietly removed — often without notifying the business — and a pattern of violations can get a Business Profile restricted or suspended entirely. If you're actively asking customers for reviews, it's worth knowing exactly where the line is.

What Google actually allows

Google is clear that it wants businesses to collect reviews. Its own guidance permits merchants to invite customers to share a genuine experience. What matters is that the invitation is open, unconditional, and goes to everyone equally — not just the customers you expect to say something nice.

The core rule: no gating

"Review gating" is the practice of pre-screening customers before directing them to Google — asking how the visit went first, then only sending happy customers a review link while unhappy ones get routed to a private feedback form. It's one of the longest-standing and most consistently enforced rules in Google's policy, and it applies regardless of how well-intentioned the private feedback form is.

The fix is simple: everyone who gets asked, gets asked the same way, with the same link, regardless of what you think their answer will be.

No incentives, in either direction

Offering a discount, a free item, or any other reward in exchange for a review is against policy — and this applies even if you don't specify what rating the review should be. The prohibition is on the exchange itself, not on the star rating attached to it. A genuine thank-you sent after someone leaves a review on their own initiative is fine; a promised reward offered beforehand is not.

The premises question

Google's official policy states that merchants should not require or pressure customers to leave a rating or write a review while they're still on the premises, and shouldn't request that the review include specific content or mention a particular staff member.

This is where a physical review card needs to be used correctly. The distinction that matters is pressure versus availability:

• Fine: a card sitting on the counter that a customer can tap with their own phone if they choose to, with no one watching or waiting for them to finish.
• Fine: a customer taps the card, opens the review page, and finishes writing it later that evening on their own device.
• Not fine: staff telling a customer they need to leave a review before completing a transaction, hovering while they type, or treating it as a condition of service.
• Not fine: a shared tablet or kiosk owned by the business where customers submit reviews on the spot — this is explicitly restricted, separate from the premises question entirely.

A card that opens a link on the customer's own phone, which they're free to ignore, close, or finish later, sits in a fundamentally different category from a business-owned device demanding input before someone can leave. Train staff to mention it once, passively, and move on — never to wait for a result.

No conflicts of interest

Reviews from business owners about their own listing, or from current and former employees about their own workplace, are against policy regardless of how genuine the sentiment is. This also covers reviewing a competitor to manipulate their rating.

If a review gets removed anyway

Google doesn't always notify businesses when a review is removed for a policy violation — a sudden drop in review count or rating is often the first sign. If you believe a genuine review was removed in error, or a competitor is leaving fake negative reviews, both can be reported and appealed through the Business Profile dashboard.