RaveReplyGoogle's review policy, in plain English
Google's review policy is two rulebooks. Reviewers may not post fake, paid, off-topic or conflict-of-interest content — every review must describe a real experience. Businesses may not pay or discount for reviews, ask only the happy customers, pressure people on the premises, or tell staff to bring back a set number. The rules owners break by accident are all in the second list. Enforcement is silent: reviews get filtered, not flagged.
Written 30 August 2026. Every quote below is linked to Google's own page.
Before you read the rules: learning the policy will not make a bad review removable. Most bad reviews are real customers describing a real job, they break no rule, and they are never coming down. This page exists so you stop breaking the rules by accident — and so you can tell which reviews are genuinely reportable. RaveReply sells review replies, not removals, so we have nothing to gain from talking up your odds.
Two rulebooks. Most guides translate only the first.
Google's rules live on one long page called “Prohibited & restricted content”. One half governs the people writing reviews. The other half governs you. The second half is where owners get hurt, because nearly every rule in it describes something a busy shop does without thinking.
| Rules for reviewers | Rules for businesses |
|---|---|
| Content must be “based on a real experience” — no invented or exaggerated posts. | No paying for reviews, in money or in kind. |
| No incentivised posts — nothing written for “payment, discounts, free goods and/or services.” | No gating: never “discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers.” |
| No conflict of interest — Google names “current or former employment,” contractors, competitors and family. | No reviewing your own business, and no posting on a competitor's listing to damage them. |
| No bulk posting “from multiple accounts by or at the request of one person.” | No “unusual volumes or patterns of review contributions” aimed at moving the rating. |
| No personal information, harassment, hate speech or impersonation. | No pressure on the premises, and no review quotas for staff. |
Every phrase in quotation marks on this page is Google's own wording, taken from the contribution policy unless another source is linked beside it.
Google rewrote this policy in February 2026
A lot of advice about Google's review rules is quietly out of date, because Google restructured the page in the middle of February 2026 and did not announce it. We checked the change against the Internet Archive's captures of the same URL.
On 15 February 2026 the page had a single section called “Fake engagement.” By 22 February 2026 a separate Rating Manipulation section had appeared, and it carried rules that were simply not on the page the week before: conflict of interest, unusual review volumes, on-premises pressure, and two lines aimed straight at how trades shops collect reviews.
New: review quotas for your own techs
Now listed under Rating Manipulation, in Google's words: “Merchants requesting that staff solicit a certain number of reviews.” That is “everybody bring back five this week” — a target most field-service software is built to track.
New: the “ask for me by name” card
Also now listed: “Merchants requesting that staff solicit reviews that include specific content, including content that identifies a staff member.” That is the van magnet and the fridge sticker that say “leave a review and mention Dave.”
New: the tablet by the door
The same section says 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.” This is the clause that covers asking a customer directly to word their review a certain way.
New: conflict of interest, spelled out
Google now names “current or former employment, a contractual or consultory relationship, or other professional or personal affiliations” — including “industry competitors, familial relationships” — as a conflict of interest. This is the clearest ground you have for reporting a review from an ex-employee or a rival.
Read those together and the picture is plain: two routine trades habits moved into the same section of the policy as buying reviews. Nothing was announced, and nobody was warned.
The business rules owners break by accident
1. Review gating
Asking only the happy ones. Google's wording: merchants may not “discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers.” A survey tool that only sends the review link to customers who rated you 5 stars is gating. The policy names it directly.
2. Incentives
Google bans offering “payment, discounts, free goods and/or services” in exchange for “posting any review or revision or removal of a negative review.” That covers the $10-off card for a review, and the discount offered to a customer to soften a bad one.
3. On-premises pressure
Merchants “should not require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises.” The tablet at the counter and the “can you do it before I go?” on the driveway are riskier than they look.
4. Volume patterns
Google removes “content exhibiting unusual volumes or patterns of review contributions that are indicative of efforts to manipulate a place's rating.” Twenty reviews off the shop QR code in one afternoon is exactly that shape. Ten across a month is not.
No warning. The review just goes.
Google does not email you a strike. It filters. Reviews that trip the policy disappear, and Google's position on getting them back is one sentence: “Reviews removed for policy violations won't be restored.”
The scale is the reason it is automated. By its own count, Google blocked or removed over 292 million policy-violating reviews in 2025. It publishes no success rates for owner flags or appeals — so any vendor quoting you “15–25% of flags succeed” or “Google rejects 70% first time” is quoting itself, not Google.
The filters eat good reviews too. In the one large published study of deletions (Localo, 335,520 deleted reviews across 22,292 profiles — one vendor's data, not Google's), 89.1% of deleted reviews were 5-star and only 5.9% were 1-star, with a median review lifetime of 78 days. That is why your good ones vanish: the data on disappearing reviews. If a review never showed up at all, start with the missing-review checklist.
What the policy does not ban
Asking every customer
Explicitly allowed. Google says 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.” Asking everyone — happy or not — is the compliant version of asking.
One reminder after the job
Sending the review link once, after the work is done, is soliciting a genuine experience. It is not an incentive and not pressure on the premises. Allowed.
Replying firmly
A factual, direct owner reply is not manipulation and breaks no rule. Google explicitly allows “content that describes negative experiences in a respectful manner” — the reviewer gets to say it, and you get to answer it. Copy-paste wording for the trades: review response examples.
Reporting a review that really does violate policy
Flag it from the profile or the Reviews Management Tool, and if Google declines you get one appeal. The Business Redressal Complaint Form is not a review tool — it handles listing-level fraud like fake business names, phone numbers and URLs. Guides that route review complaints through it are repeating folklore. Full walk-through: what Google review removal really involves.
US law has its own version, with fines attached
Google's policy costs you reviews. The FTC's rule costs money. 16 CFR Part 465 bans writing, buying and incentivising fake reviews — and separately bans suppressing genuine ones at § 465.7, “Review suppression.” It has been in force since October 2024, with fines up to $51,744 per violation. If you have ever been sold a service that promised to make honest negative reviews go away, that is the section to read first.
You can follow every rule and still get a 1-star on a Friday.
The policy decides what comes down. The reply decides what the next customer reads. RaveReply drafts a response to every review in your shop's own voice — short, specific, no corporate tone. You approve each one in about ten seconds, and nothing posts without you.
More reading: what Google review removal really involves · how to remove a bad Google review · how to remove a fake Google review · why good reviews disappear — the data · a review that never showed up · reply examples for the trades · free AI visibility scan