More Google reviews, without breaking Google's rules or UK law

On 17 April 2026 Google quietly added two lines to its Maps review policy. Asking customers to mention a particular engineer by name is now against the rules. So is telling your team they each need so many reviews a month.

Amy Toman, a Google Diamond Product Expert, spotted it and PPC Land reported it. If you pay a bonus tied to review counts, that scheme's the casualty.

What Google actually bans

Two parts of the policy matter. Fake engagement covers anything not based on a real experience, including reviews "that have been paid for, directly or in kind". Rating manipulation holds the rules for merchants. That's the bit to read.

• Incentives for a review, or for the "revision or removal of a negative review". Cash, discounts, freebies, prize draws.
• "Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers." That's review gating, named in the policy.
• Pressuring customers to review while they're on your premises.
• Requesting content "that identifies a staff member", or setting staff a target number of reviews.
• "Unusual volumes or patterns of review contributions."
• Conflict of interest: staff, ex staff, family, your mate who's never paid you a penny.

What's allowed is in the same policy. Merchants may "solicit or encourage the posting of content that does represent a genuine experience, without offering incentives to do so". Asking is fine. Steering is not.

In the UK, gating is a legal problem too

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 brought the fake review rules into force on 6 April 2025, with CMA guidance (Fake reviews: CMA208) two days before.

Incentivised reviews aren't banned outright by UK law. Concealed ones are. They must be prominently and unambiguously labelled and still reflect a genuine experience. The trap: labelling keeps you the right side of UK law, while an incentivised Google review still breaches Google's policy. Two tests, not one.

Suppression is the bigger risk. CMA guidance treats "limiting invitations to review a product/service in order to avoid negative reviews" and "redirecting negative reviews into a company's complaints-handling processes" as the wrong side of the line. That's the funnel some agencies still sell: happy customers get the Google link, unhappy ones get a private feedback form. Fines can reach 10% of global turnover.

In March 2026 the CMA opened investigations into Autotrader, Feefo, Dignity, Just Eat and Pasta Evangelists over fake or misleading reviews. Nothing has been concluded. The allegations include one star reviews kept out of star ratings and undisclosed discounts for five star ones.

What reviews actually do for your ranking

Google names three local ranking factors: relevance, distance and prominence ("how well-known a business is"). Reviews sit under prominence, and Google's one load bearing sentence: "More reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking."

That's the whole promise. No weighting, no threshold. Anyone quoting you a percentage is quoting a survey of other agencies, not Google. On replies, Google says only that replying "shows that you value their feedback" and that "Positive reviews and helpful replies can help your business stand out". Stand out. Not rank.

Reply anyway, for conversion rather than rankings. BrightLocal's 2026 review survey (1,002 US adults, so directional rather than UK proof) found 89% expect owners to respond and 50% are put off by generic replies. Pasting "Thanks for your feedback!" fifteen times running is worse than saying nothing.

The maths for 5 to 20 jobs a week

From the same survey: 47% won't use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, 74% look for reviews from the last three months, and 32% want one from the last fortnight.

At 10 jobs a week, asking everyone properly, we'd expect a quarter to a third to actually leave one. Call it three a week. That clears 20 in six to eight weeks and lands you around 40 in a year. The target isn't a big number, it's a trickle that never stops. A 4.9 with nothing since last autumn reads worse than a 4.6 with one from Tuesday.

Asking, without being the bloke with the tablet

Ask at the moment of visible relief. The boiler fires. The leak stops. The keys go back in their hand. Then text the short review link from your Business Profile the same day, because half of them will have forgotten by teatime.

Printed QR codes are fine, whatever you've read. Google's own help page suggests the review link on receipts, in thank you emails and printed to display in store. What's banned is pressure. A QR code on the invoice is fine. A tablet held under someone's nose while they put their coat on is not.

Don't try to catch up in a fortnight either. Google prohibits "unusual volumes or patterns of review contributions", so 40 requests in a week after a year of silence is the wrong shape. The safe velocity numbers quoted elsewhere have no source I can find. Ignore them and ask as you finish each job. Google removed over 292 million policy violating reviews in 2025, so the machine is watching.

Responding to a bad review, with a worked example

Google's own advice is short. Be professional and polite, keep it short and simple, protect privacy, apologise when appropriate, respond in good time.

A UK point most posts miss. Naming the customer, quoting their address or spelling out the work you did can be a UK GDPR problem as well as a Google one. The reviewer may be pseudonymous. Identifying them is you processing personal data.

An invented review, written to show the pattern rather than lifted from a real profile. Two stars: "Booked them to fix a leak under the sink. Turned up two hours late with no phone call, then charged £40 more than the quote. Work seems okay but I won't use them again."

The reply that costs you customers: "This is completely inaccurate. We rang you twice on the 14th and you didn't pick up. The £40 was for the trap which YOU agreed to at 12 Oakfield Road." It attacks the reviewer, publishes their address and argues the case in public. Every word could be true and it would still read badly to the next ten people.

The reply that works: "Thanks for the feedback, and I'm sorry we ran late. We should have rung ahead and that's on us. On the price, the extra was for a part we fitted on the day, but I can see we didn't explain that clearly enough before doing the work. I'd like to put it right. Could you call me on [your number]? Ben, owner"

Seventy words. It concedes the failure you can't dispute, the missing phone call, without conceding the one you can. It explains the charge in a clause instead of arguing it. Nothing personal, resolution offline, signed by a human. The audience is the next reader.

If they amend or delete it afterwards, that's their choice. Offering the refund on condition they change it breaches the incentive clause, which names "revision or removal of a negative review" outright.

When a review can genuinely be removed

Report it from the profile or in the Reviews Management Tool. Google says "Review evaluation typically takes several days", then you'll see decision pending, no policy violation found, or escalated. There's a one time appeal, up to 10 reviews at once.

Unfair is not a removal ground, and neither is "they never paid us". Only policy violations work: off topic content, conflict of interest, or a review from someone who was never a customer. If you get the "pay us or we leave one star reviews" message, don't pay. Google says it blocks much of that before it posts.

Can I offer a discount for a review if I disclose it?

UK law allows incentivised reviews when they're prominently labelled and genuinely reflect the experience. Google's policy doesn't allow them at all, disclosed or not. So for Google reviews, no.

Is it okay to just ask my happy customers?

No, on both counts. Google prohibits selectively soliciting positive reviews, and the CMA treats limiting invitations to avoid negative ones as suppression. Ask everyone, the same way, every time.

None of this needs an agency. It needs a habit, and someone keeping half an eye on the profile. If you'd rather that were someone else's job, that's part of what we do.