Most business owners who are actively collecting reviews have at least one practice that technically violates Google's policies. Not from malice, but because the policies are specific and widely misunderstood.
Here's a plain-English breakdown of what Google allows, what it prohibits, and what the consequences are for getting it wrong.
What Google Prohibits
Incentivized Reviews
Google prohibits offering any incentive for leaving a review. This includes:
- Discounts on future purchases
- Free products or services
- Loyalty points or rewards
- Entry into a sweepstakes or drawing
- Cash or gift cards
Even framing it as "thank you" for a review after the fact (not asked before) creates a policy problem because it trains customers to expect compensation and creates an implicit quid pro quo.
The practical test: if you're giving something to customers because they left a review, or to encourage them to leave one, it's prohibited.
Fake Reviews
Obvious, but worth being explicit: Google prohibits creating or soliciting fake reviews. This includes:
- Employees or business owners leaving reviews for their own business
- Asking friends, family members, or vendors to leave reviews for your business
- Paying for reviews from review farms
- Creating multiple accounts to leave reviews
The gray area here: customers can absolutely leave honest reviews based on real experiences. Business owners and staff who are also genuine customers of their own product/service live in complicated territory, but Google's guidance leans toward prohibiting any review where the reviewer has a conflict of interest.
Review Gating
This is the most commonly violated policy by businesses that think they're doing the right thing.
Review gating means filtering customers before sending a review request based on whether they're likely to leave a positive review. A common implementation: sending a satisfaction survey first, then only routing happy customers to the review request. Routing unhappy customers to an internal feedback form instead.
This practice is explicitly prohibited by Google. Review solicitation must give all customers the same path to a public review, regardless of their anticipated sentiment.
This doesn't mean you can't use internal satisfaction surveys. But those surveys cannot be a gating mechanism that determines who receives a public review request.
Bulk or Purchased Lists
Buying a list of email addresses and sending review requests to people who have never transacted with your business is prohibited. Review requests must go to actual customers from actual transactions.
What Google Allows
Asking satisfied customers for reviews: Directly, verbally, via text, or via email. The ask can happen in person, over the phone, or through automated follow-up. Asking is explicitly permitted.
Providing a direct link to your review form: You can make it as easy as possible for customers to leave a review. A link that takes them directly to the review form is not a policy violation.
Responding to reviews: Both positive and negative. Google encourages responses.
Reporting reviews that violate Google's policies: If you believe a review is fake, spam, or policy-violating, you can flag it for Google's review. This is not the same as trying to remove legitimate negative reviews.
Displaying reviews in marketing materials: With attribution and in context, using your Google reviews in ads, on your website, or in print materials is permitted. Google's brand guidelines apply to how you use their name and logo.
Gray Areas Worth Knowing
Asking staff: If an employee is also a genuine customer and had an authentic experience, their review isn't automatically prohibited. But if they're reviewing because they work there, it's a conflict of interest. Most review management practitioners advise against this entirely due to the ambiguity.
Asking vendors or business partners: Vendors who have had genuine customer interactions with your business aren't prohibited from reviewing it. Vendors who are reviewing you purely as a relationship favor is a policy problem.
Bulk review requests to a customer list: Sending a review request to your customer email list (actual customers, not a purchased list) is permitted as long as it's not incentivized and doesn't gate based on expected sentiment.
Real Enforcement Consequences
Google enforces these policies in two ways:
Review removal: Google's systems automatically flag reviews that show patterns of fake or incentivized behavior. Reviews can be removed without warning. If you've been actively incentivizing reviews, you may see a batch of reviews disappear.
GBP suspension: In serious cases of policy violation (fake review campaigns, coordinated incentivized review programs), Google can suspend your Google Business Profile entirely. A suspended GBP means your business doesn't appear in Google Maps or local search results, which is a devastating consequence for any local business.
Suspension for review policy violations is less common than for other GBP violations, but it's real and documented. The risk is not theoretical.
Auditing Your Current Practices
Run through this checklist to assess your compliance:
- Are review requests going only to actual customers from real transactions?
- Is any incentive of any kind offered for leaving a review?
- Are you using a satisfaction filter to determine who receives a review request?
- Are employees, family members, or friends padding your review count?
- Are all customers given the same path to a public review, regardless of their expected sentiment?
If any box generates a "yes" or "maybe," that practice should be examined and likely changed.
Laudy is built around Google's review policies. Our request workflows are compliant by design, so you can collect reviews confidently. Start your free trial at /signup.