Google is Cracking Down on Reviews: What Businesses Need to Know

Google recently updated its Policy on Fake & Misleading Behavior which has resulted in some Google My Business pages being penalized and even permanently deleted.

This update is a significant tightening of Google's stance on review manipulation. The biggest takeaway is that Google is no longer just removing fake reviews—it is increasingly penalizing the business itself when it detects suspicious review activity.

What Google Is Cracking Down On

Under the "Rating Manipulation" section, Google prohibits:

• Paying customers for reviews

• Offering discounts, gift cards, loyalty points, free products, or other incentives in exchange for reviews

• Asking only happy customers to leave reviews while discouraging unhappy customers

• Review kiosks or in-store review stations that generate multiple reviews from the same IP/device

• Employees reviewing their own employer

• Friends, family, vendors, or contractors leaving reviews without being genuine customers

• Fake reviews purchased from third parties

• Review campaigns designed to artificially inflate ratings rather than collect authentic feedback

What's New and Important

Historically, businesses often got away with questionable review tactics because Google would simply filter suspicious reviews.

Based on the update, Google can:

• Remove reviews

• Temporarily disable new reviews on your profile

• Remove ratings from public view

• Display warning notices on your Business Profile indicating fake reviews were removed

• Apply profile-level restrictions that can impact local search visibility

For businesses that rely heavily on local SEO, losing review functionality can be devastating.

Can You Still Ask For Reviews?

Yes. Google explicitly allows businesses to ask customers for reviews. The key difference is that you must ask all customers equally and not influence the outcome.

Here are some examples of non-compliant behaviour:

• "Leave us a 5-star review and receive a $10 gift card."

• "Click here if you had a good experience, contact us directly if you didn't."

What Businesses Should Be Doing Instead

1. Ask Every Customer: Build review requests into your process. The safest approach is to request feedback from everyone, regardless of whether you think they'll leave a positive or negative review.

2. Automate Review Requests: Automated email or SMS requests after service completion remain completely compliant.

3. Respond to Reviews: Responding to reviews helps demonstrate authenticity and engagement. Google continues to encourage businesses to engage with reviewers. You should respond to every review, whether it's good or bad. This is also a great PR practice to protect brand integrity.

4. Use QR Codes, But Be Careful: QR codes linking to your review page are still acceptable. You can place a QR code on invoices, receipts, thank-you cards, or signage. But do not create a kiosk where multiple customers leave reviews on the same device or tablet. Google has specifically targeted practices that create unnatural review patterns.

Ask every customer for an honest review, make it easy to leave one, and never offer anything in return.

Businesses that consistently generate genuine review requests through email, SMS, receipts, and customer follow-up will continue to grow their review count without risk. The businesses most likely to get penalized are those trying to influence who leaves reviews or what rating they leave.