Google’s rules on asking for reviews: what you can and cannot do

Every few months a contractor finds out the hard way that a habit picked up from a marketing course breaks Google’s rules: the raffle for customers who leave a review, the “only text the happy ones” filter, the tech who gets a bonus per five star review. The rules are not hidden. They sit on two Google help pages and, for US businesses, in a federal regulation. This guide reads them for you, in plain English, with the exact wording linked.

What Google allows

Start with the good news. Google does not just tolerate review requests, it encourages them. Its help page for business owners tells you to “remind customers to leave reviews” by sharing a Google link or a QR code (Google). The policy page spells out the permission in one sentence. Merchants may:

Solicit or encourage the posting of content that does represent a genuine experience, without offering incentives to do so or attempting to influence the rating or the contents of the review.

That sentence carries three conditions, and almost every violation breaks one of them: the experience must be genuine, nothing can be offered in return, and you cannot steer the rating or the words.

What Google bans

The relevant sections of Google’s Maps content policy are called Fake Engagement and, since early 2026, Rating Manipulation (Google). Here is what they rule out for a business, grouped by the habits we see most in the trades.

Incentives of any size

Google does not allow merchants to offer incentives “such as payment, discounts, free goods and/or services” in exchange for posting any review, or for the “revision or removal of a negative review.” There is no small print for small rewards. A ten dollar gift card, a discount on the next tune up, a raffle entry and a free filter change are all incentives. So is paying a customer to delete or soften a bad review.

Review gating

Review gating means asking customers how the job went and sending only the happy ones to Google, while the unhappy ones get a private form. Google bans merchants from “selectively solicit[ing] positive reviews from customers” and from discouraging or prohibiting negative reviews. Some review software was built around this funnel. If a tool asks you to rate the customer’s mood before it sends the link, ask what happens to the low scores.

Pressure, scripts and quotas

The 2026 additions are the ones most likely to catch a field service business. 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.” Google then gives two examples of what this covers:

• merchants requesting that staff solicit a certain number of reviews;
• merchants requesting that staff solicit reviews that include specific content, including content that identifies a staff member.

Read that against a typical home service routine. A tech who stands in the kitchen while the customer types is applying pressure on the premises. A text that says “please mention Mike and our fast service” requests specific content. A monthly target of twenty reviews per technician is a staff quota.

Everything else in the Fake Engagement section

The older rules still apply: no reviews from your own staff or family, no reviews posted from several accounts by one person, no paid reviews “directly or in kind”, and no reviews of a competitor meant to damage it. Content based on a conflict of interest, including “current or former employment” and “familial relationships”, is listed as rating manipulation.

What changed in 2026

Google does not publish a changelog for its policy pages, so we compared archived copies. The Internet Archive’s copy of the policy from February 1, 2026 has no Rating Manipulation section and none of the wording on pressure, specific content or staff quotas (archive, February 1). The copy from March 3, 2026 has all of it (archive, March 3). The permission sentence also grew: it now adds “or attempting to influence the rating or the contents of the review.”

The practical change is that Google now describes how businesses ask, not just what they offer. Scripts, quotas and hovering used to be bad manners. They are now written policy.

What happens if Google catches it

Google removes the reviews that break the policy. On top of that, a Business Profile can be restricted. Google lists three examples of restrictions (Google):

1. the profile cannot receive new reviews or ratings for a set period;
2. existing reviews and ratings are unpublished for a set period;
3. the profile displays a warning telling consumers that fake reviews were removed.

That warning is public. Google’s consumer alerts page explains that people searching for you may see “a banner on the business’s page to let you know that suspicious reviews were removed” (Google). Google says it notifies owners by email before applying a restriction, and that businesses can appeal.

The US law on top

Google’s policy is a platform rule. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission’s Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, in effect since October 21, 2024, adds law (FTC). Three parts matter to a contractor:

• Incentives tied to sentiment. It is illegal for a business to offer compensation or other incentives “conditioned expressly or by implication” on a review expressing a particular sentiment (16 CFR 465.4).
• Review suppression. Using unfounded legal threats, physical threats or intimidation to stop a review or get one removed is illegal (16 CFR 465.7).
• Gating. The rule itself does not name it, but FTC staff say asking only customers you think are happy “could violate the FTC Act”, pointing to the Endorsement Guides. Their example 11 describes exactly the funnel above: inviting only purchasers who gave very positive feedback to post reviews, which “may be an unfair or deceptive practice” (16 CFR 255.2).

The FTC notes that the rule allows courts to impose civil penalties for knowing violations. Note one gap between the two regimes: the FTC rule does not ban every incentive, only those tied to sentiment, while Google bans all of them. On Google, the stricter rule is the one that applies.

Yelp plays by different rules

If you also care about Yelp, know that its policy goes further than Google’s: “Don’t ask anyone to review your business, be it customers, mailing list subscribers, friends, family, etc.” Yelp’s software tries to spot requested reviews and not recommend them (Yelp). A request that is fine on Google can hurt you on Yelp, so point your review requests at Google only.

A routine that stays inside the lines

1. Send the same request to every customer at the same point in the job, whatever you think of their mood.
2. Use Google’s own review link, with nothing in between that sorts customers.
3. Offer nothing. Thank people, do not reward them.
4. Do not script the review. Name the job you did, not the words you want back.
5. Ask, then leave. No waiting in the driveway while they type.
6. No review targets for staff. Reward good work, not review counts.
7. Reply to every review, including the bad ones. Google’s tips page says a mix of positive and negative feedback “often feels more trustworthy”.

Software does not make you compliant on its own. Jobber, for example, lets you switch off automatic review requests for a specific client (Jobber). That is useful for a client in a billing dispute. Switch it off for everyone who complained and you have built a gate by hand.

For the wording of a compliant request, see how to ask for a Google review by text. For channels, read QR code vs text vs email. And before you pick a tool, check how each one sends requests in our comparison of review request tools. More on this topic: Google rules.