RaveReplyCan you turn off Google reviews? No — and here's what happens when you try
No. Google Business Profile has no setting to turn reviews off, and no form to request it. The only profiles with reviews switched off are the ones Google switched off itself — to protect owners, or for K–12 schools. Marking yourself permanently closed, removing the profile, asking Google to delete the listing, review gating, and no-review contract clauses either leave the reviews up or break a rule.
Written 16 September 2026. Every quote below is linked to Google's or the FTC's own page.
Why you can trust this page: RaveReply sells review replies, not removals — which is why we can print the sentence removal vendors cannot. Most bad reviews are real customers, and they are never coming down. The fastest thing that changes what a searcher sees under your name is the reply below the review, not the review's absence. What follows is what Google's own documentation says happens with each workaround, so you can stop paying for the ones that do nothing.
What owners try, and what Google says happens
When an owner has had enough, the same five ideas show up in the same order. Here is each one, with the words Google and the FTC actually use. Not one of them turns reviews off.
| What owners try | What actually happens |
|---|---|
| Mark the business permanently closed | Google: “If you mark a business as permanently closed, your Business Profile may still appear on Search and Maps for users who search for it. It clearly shows that your business is closed.” The reviews stay on the profile. The only thing that changes is a “Permanently closed” label on a shop that is still trading. |
| Remove the profile from your Google account | Google: “After removal, your business might still show up on Search and Maps, unless it’s considered ineligible business.” And on what removal actually deletes: “Any posts, photos, videos, and review replies by owners and managers are permanently removed.” The next line is the one owners never read: “User-generated content and review remains.” Your replies and photos go. Their reviews stay. And to get back in: “To manage your business again, you must re-verify your Business Profile.” |
| Ask Google to remove the listing from Maps | Google: “A business can be removed from Google if it never existed or isn’t eligible to be on Google.” A real, open shop is neither. That page does not offer the Business Redressal Complaint Form for reviews either — it covers only the name, phone number, or website of a business. |
| Screen customers so only the happy ones get the link (review gating) | Google's contribution policy: merchants may not “Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers”. Gating is a rule you break, not a switch you flip — the whole story is on review gating: what it is and why Google bans it. The gating and incentive rules in plain English are on Google's review policy, in plain English. |
| Put a “no negative reviews” clause in your contract or terms | This one is federal law, not Google policy. The Consumer Review Fairness Act makes clauses like this illegal — the FTC's exact wording, and its warning about the narrow carve-out, is in the next section. |
The removal trap, in one line. Pulling your Business Profile out of your account deletes what you wrote — replies, photos, videos — and keeps the customer reviews you wanted gone. It leaves you worse off, not just unchanged.
The clause the FTC tells you to delete today
The Consumer Review Fairness Act is the federal law on contract terms that restrict reviews. In the FTC's words, it “makes it illegal for a company to use a contract provision that:”
“bars or restricts the ability of a person who is a party to that contract to review a company’s products, services, or conduct;”
“imposes a penalty or fee against someone who gives a review; or”
“requires people to give up their intellectual property rights in the content of their reviews.”
Enforcement is not theoretical: “Congress gave enforcement authority to the Federal Trade Commission and the state Attorneys General.” The FTC's advice is blunt: “Remove any provision that restricts people from sharing their honest reviews, penalizes those who do, or claims copyright over peoples’ reviews (even if you’ve never tried to enforce it or have no intention of enforcing it).”
The money, if you leave it in: the FTC says a violation “will be treated the same as violating an FTC rule defining an unfair or deceptive act or practice.” That puts it under the same ceiling as any FTC trade-regulation-rule violation — $53,088 per violation, under 16 CFR § 1.98(d) and FTC Act § 5(m)(1)(A). That figure is adjusted for inflation every January. It is a per-violation ceiling rather than a fine you should expect in the post, but the clause is not a free bet.
There is a carve-out, and it is narrow. The same FTC page says a business may prohibit or remove a review that “is libelous, harassing, abusive, obscene, vulgar, sexually explicit” or that “is clearly false or misleading.” Then comes the line every owner needs: “it’s unlikely that a consumer’s assessment or opinion with which you disagree meets the ‘clearly false or misleading’ standard.” A one-star review saying you were rude is an opinion. It stays.
If your next move is a lawyer's letter
The threat route is the one place federal law names a specific act. The section is 16 CFR § 465.7, headed “Review suppression” — but the rule is narrower than its heading. Read at source, § 465.7(a) bans exactly one thing that applies here: using “an unfounded or groundless legal threat, a physical threat, intimidation, or a public false accusation” in response to a review, to stop it being written or to “cause a review or any portion thereof to be removed.” A letter threatening a baseless lawsuit over a real customer's honest review is the thing that section describes.
The other half, § 465.7(b), is about a business misrepresenting the reviews displayed on its own website or platform. Google reviews live on Google, so (b) does not reach them at all. Anyone telling you § 465.7 outlaws “suppressing negative reviews” in general is quoting the heading, not the rule. Offering a customer money to take a review down is a different document again — Google's incentives policy, not § 465.7.
The only reviews Google actually turns off
When Google decides to protect you
Google: “In certain situations, Google might temporarily disable user-created content, including reviews, for certain Business Profiles or business categories to protect business owners.” That is the shield Google raises when a profile is being piled on — temporary, Google-initiated, and not something you can ask for.
K–12 schools
The other case is a category decision, from the same page: “reviews and ratings will be removed and disabled for Google Business Profiles primarily categorized as educational institutions for students aged 6 to 18. Current reviews for affected schools will be deleted and new reviews are no longer allowed for these locations.” Then the exclusion, so no trades reader gets their hopes up: “universities, day care centers, or swim schools, won’t be impacted by this change.” A plumbing company is not on that list, and there is no form to get on it.
What you can actually do
You cannot turn reviews off. You can change what a customer reads under your name.
Flag the ones that break policy
Fake, paid, off-topic, conflict-of-interest and mass-posted reviews are the only kind Google removes. The path is flag → wait → one appeal, and once something comes down for a policy violation it stays down: “Reviews removed for policy violations won’t be restored.” Do not expect a percentage. Google publishes no removal success rates at all — every figure you have read (“15–25% of DIY flags succeed”) is vendor marketing. Google blocked or removed 292 million reviews in 2025 by its own count — its filters acting, not your flag. The real mechanics are on what Google review removal really involves.
Reply to the real ones
Most bad reviews are real customers, and they are never coming down. The reply under a bad review is what the next searcher reads, and it is the only lever you fully control. Google's rules for owner replies are on how to respond to a bad review, and copy-paste wording for the trades is on review response examples.
Bury them in volume
A review someone has to scroll for does less damage than the one on top. Ask every happy customer, the same day, with one tap — the link and QR mechanics are on how to ask for a Google review.
If it is one specific review you want gone rather than the whole feature, that is a different question with a different answer: can you delete a Google review? The honest summary: the bad review stays. What changes is what sits under it.
The reviews stay. The reply next to each one is yours.
RaveReply drafts a reply to every review in your shop's own voice — dry, specific, and yours to approve before anything posts. That is the one job on this page you can actually buy.
More reading: review gating, explained · can you delete a Google review? · what Google review removal really involves · how to remove a bad Google review · how to remove a fake Google review · Google's review policy in plain English · how to respond to a bad review · how to ask for a Google review · reply examples for the trades · free AI visibility scan