Getting reviews the right way, and what Google actually forbids

For a local business, reviews are the highest-return thing you can do that costs nothing. They are also the one part of your online presence I cannot do for you.

I can build the site, set up the profile, and make Google able to read both. I cannot make your customers write about you. That is the part that is yours, and it matters more than most of the work I get paid for: Google says so itself, in the page where it explains how local results are decided.

There is also a way of collecting reviews that is sold to small businesses constantly, by people who should know better, and which is against Google's rules. It is worth ten minutes to know which side of that line you are on, because the penalty lands on your profile, not on the agency that set it up.

Google publishes the three things that decide local ranking: relevance, distance, and prominence. On prominence:

Prominence means how well-known a business is. […] This factor's also based on info like how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have. More reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking.

Two of the three factors are mostly fixed. Relevance is your category, which you set once. Distance is where you are, and you cannot move. Prominence is the one you can actually change, and reviews are the half of it you control directly.

And on the thing people get cold-called about:

There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google.

If somebody offers to buy you placement in the map pack, they are either lying or about to do something that gets your profile suspended.

All of this is from one page — Google's Maps user-generated content policy — and I am quoting rather than paraphrasing because the paraphrases circulating are where people go wrong.

This is the one that catches good businesses, because the thing that breaks the rule is sold as a feature.

Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers.

That is prohibited conduct. It describes what the industry calls review gating: a survey that asks "how did we do?" first, sends the four- and five-star answers to Google, and routes everyone else to a private complaints form. It is built into a lot of reputation-management software and sold as protecting your rating.

It is against the rules. Ask everybody, the same way, and take what comes.

Offer incentives – such as payment, discounts, free goods and/or services - in exchange for posting any review or revision or removal of a negative review.

No discount for a review. No raffle entry. No free coffee. No "leave us five stars and get 10% off". This includes paying to have a bad review removed, which is also prohibited.

This one surprises people, and I have not seen it written down anywhere outside Google's own page:

When soliciting reviews, merchants should not require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises, nor should they request that specific content be included.

So: no tablet by the till. No "would you mind doing it now before you go?". And do not tell them what to mention — asking a customer to name a particular service or a particular staff member is requesting specific content.

Send the link and let them write it somewhere else, in their own words.

Content that is based on a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest may include current or former employment, a contractual or consultory relationship, or other professional or personal affiliations that demonstrate a conflict of interest (such as industry competitors, familial relationships, etc.).

Your employees cannot review you. Nor can your brother. Nor can I, and I have built the site, which is a contractual relationship and therefore exactly the thing being described.

And the other direction is prohibited too — you may not post on a competitor's listing to damage them.

The whole system, and it is genuinely this small.

1. Get your review link. In your Business Profile there is an "Ask for reviews" option that produces a short link. It opens the review box directly, already pointed at your business. Save it in your phone.

Send that. Not "look us up on Google" — every extra step loses people, and searching for you is three steps.

2. Ask every customer, once, the same day. Not a week later, when the job has stopped feeling notable. The same day, while they are still pleased. In person as they leave, or by text that evening.

3. Ask the same way every time. The moment you start deciding who to ask based on how you think they feel, you are gating. A fixed habit — everyone, same message — is both easier and the only version that follows the rules.

4. Say something plain. This works as well as anything:

Thanks again — really glad you were happy with it. If you have a minute, a short Google review genuinely helps people find us: [link]

No script for them. No requested content. No incentive.

5. Reply to all of them. Including — especially — the bad one. A calm, specific, unbothered reply to a complaint reads better to the next customer than the complaint reads badly. Defensive replies do far more damage than the original review.

6. Keep going. Recency shows. In BrightLocal's 2026 consumer survey, 74% of US consumers said they look for reviews written in the last three months, and 32% for reviews from the last two weeks. That is what people go looking for, not a rule anyone enforces — but a wall of five-star reviews that stops eighteen months ago reads as a business that peaked.

You will get one. Possibly an unfair one.

You cannot have it deleted, and neither can I. It can be reported, and Google removes it if it breaks a policy — fake, abusive, not about your business, posted by someone with a conflict of interest. "It is unfair" is not grounds, and neither is "they are wrong".

So the answer to a bad review is arithmetic: more good ones. One complaint under nine recent positives reads as one bad day. The same complaint under four reviews from two years ago reads as the truth about your business.

That is the real reason to ask everybody, every time, rather than only when you think about it.

Send me the good ones and I will put them on your site, with a link back to your Google profile so a stranger can check they are real. An unattributed quote on a website is the weakest form of proof there is — a linked one, with a name and a business attached, is among the strongest.

And if you would rather write it somewhere that helps you rather than me: a Google review is worth more to your business than a testimonial on your own site, because it feeds the ranking factor above. If you only have the energy for one, do that one.