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How to get Google reviews without breaking the rules

Getting found 5 min read

What Google's review rules actually forbid, and a way of asking your customers that stays inside them and still gets you answers.

You finished a job on Thursday and the customer meant it when they said they were pleased. Three weeks on there is still nothing on your listing, because nobody wakes up wanting to write a review, and the moment when they would have has gone.

The asking is the entire job. The rules around it are shorter than people think, and most of the trouble comes from three of them.

Never offer anything in return

Not a discount, not a free coffee, not entry into a draw, not money off the next visit. Incentivized reviews are against Google's policy, they can be removed when they are found, and the listing carrying the risk is yours even when somebody else ran the promotion on your behalf.

This one catches decent people, because offering a small thank you feels generous rather than sharp. It is still the rule. Thank them out loud at the time, and ask for the review as a separate thing with nothing attached to it.

Do not ask only the ones you know are pleased

Sending your happy customers to Google and your unhappy ones to a private feedback form is called gating, and the policy prohibits it. A good many tools quietly did it, and some still do, so ask the question if you are handed one.

Ask everybody who had a complete, ordinary job. That is uncomfortable the first few times and it is also the only version that holds up. If the thought of asking everybody frightens you, the review process is not the thing that needs fixing, and it is better to find that out now.

Ask while the work is still in front of them

The window is short and it closes at the end of the visit. Standing in the driveway looking at the finished roof. At the counter while the card machine thinks about it. At the front desk with the next appointment being written down.

That is the only moment the person feels the thing you want them to describe. A week later they feel nothing in particular about it, which is why an email arriving in a quiet inbox on a Tuesday does so little.

The spoken ask is what makes the message expected. The message is what makes it possible, because nobody is going to go and find your listing on their own.

Out loud, plainly: "If you have a minute this week, a Google review helps people find us." Then a text within the hour, from you, short, naming the job. "Glad the water heater is behaving. Here is the link if you get a minute." One reminder at most, and only if the first one was several days ago.

Your profile gives you a share link for reviews, under the option to ask for them. It opens the review box directly, which is why you use it. A link to the listing makes the customer hunt for the button, and a fair number of them will not.

Save it where you can reach it in two taps: a saved message on your phone, a keyboard shortcut, a card in the van with the link on it and nothing else. Send it to yourself first and watch what it does on a phone that is not yours.

Nothing from staff, family or the trade next door

An employee reviewing their employer is a conflict of interest under the policy. So is your brother. So is a swap with the business you share a parking lot with.

It is also visible. Six reviews in one afternoon, all from accounts with no other reviews, all five stars, is a pattern a careful reader spots before Google does. Buying reviews is worse again, and the people selling them are not on your side when it goes wrong.

Some reviews will vanish, and it is usually not about you

Reviews disappear. Accounts get flagged, filters catch bursts, people delete their accounts, and sometimes there is no explanation available to anyone outside Google.

The defense is a steady trickle rather than a burst. Two or three a month, arriving in the ordinary rhythm of your work, holds up better than thirty in two weeks, and it reads like what it is. Do not chase the same customer twice over one that went missing.

You do not need to pay anybody for this

The whole system is a saved link, a habit at the end of a job, and somebody who does not forget. If you can hold those three things, you do not need software and you do not need us.

Where it goes wrong is the forgetting. Between the van, the invoices and the school run, the asking is the first thing to fall off. If you have asked nobody in four months, the problem was never knowledge, and that is the only honest reason to pay for the asking to happen without you.

A short checklist

Questions people ask

Can I offer a discount for a Google review

No. Incentivized reviews break the policy and can be taken down, and that includes a raffle, a free coffee and money off the next visit.

Is it against the rules to ask only my happy customers

Yes. Choosing who gets asked based on how it went is gating, and the policy prohibits it. Ask everybody who had a complete job.

Can I ask for a review by text message

Yes. One personal message with the direct link is fine. Anonymous bulk messaging to a list you bought is not.

Why did a review I could see yesterday disappear

Reviews are filtered and removed for reasons nobody outside Google can see in full. One going missing is ordinary and is not evidence that you did something wrong.

How many Google reviews do I need

There is no threshold that switches anything on. A stranger is looking for enough of them, recent enough, in the words of people who sound like them.

Can I ask a customer from two years ago

You can, and they are allowed to leave one at any time. Expect most of them not to answer, because the job has left their head. The recent ones are the ones who still remember what you did.

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