Most small businesses with few Google reviews do not have unhappy customers. They have customers who were never asked, or were asked in a way that took more effort than the review itself. The fix is mostly logistics, with two rules you cannot break: one is Google’s, and since April 2025 one is the law.
How to find your Google review link, and make it impossible to lose
Google gives every verified Business Profile a direct review link and a QR code. Its help pages describe the route on a computer: open the profile, choose Read reviews, then Get more reviews, and copy the link or save the QR code. Google notes that the QR code can currently only be generated in a computer browser, not on a phone.
Google’s own suggestions for where to put it are sensible: receipts, thank-you emails, the end of a chat conversation, and a printed QR code where customers can see it. For a trade, add the invoice and the final text message. For a shop, the counter.
The link matters more than it looks. A customer who has to search for you, find the right listing and work out where reviews go will often give up halfway. One tap to a box with stars in it is the whole difference.
If you do not have a Business Profile yet, start with how to get your business on Google Maps.
When to ask
Ask when the work is finished and the customer has seen it. For a trade, that is the day the job is signed off, not the day the invoice is paid three weeks later, when the good feeling has worn off. For a café, it is the receipt or a card on the table.
Ask in person if you can, then send the link the same day so the request and the means arrive together. A message along these lines is enough:
Thanks again for having us in. If you have a minute, a Google review helps other people round here find us: [link]. No worries if not.
That is the whole request. It names no rating and offers nothing, which matters for the two sections below.
What Google forbids
Google’s policy on reviews is stricter than most business owners expect. Its contribution policies say businesses may not:
- Offer incentives for a review: payment, discounts, free goods or services. Google calls this fake engagement and says it is strictly prohibited. That includes a free coffee or ten per cent off the next job.
- Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive ones. This is the practice known as review gating: asking customers how the job went privately, then sending the review link only to the ones who said “great”.
- Post reviews with a conflict of interest. Google lists current or former employment, family relationships and other personal or professional ties. Your staff, your partner and your mum should not be reviewing you.
- Buy reviews, in money or in kind.
Breaking these rules can get reviews removed. Google’s help pages also describe restrictions on profiles that break its fake engagement policy, including blocking new reviews for a period and showing a warning to visitors that fake reviews were removed.
What UK law says
Since 6 April 2025, fake reviews have been a banned practice in UK consumer law. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 lists them in Schedule 20, the list of commercial practices that are unfair in all circumstances. The consumer protection part of the Act came into force on that date, replacing the previous unfair trading regulations.
The ban covers submitting or commissioning a fake review, meaning one that claims to be based on a genuine experience and is not, and commissioning a review that hides the fact it was incentivised. It also covers publishing reviews in a misleading way.
The Competition and Markets Authority’s guidance on the ban spells out what that means for a small business. Among its examples of commissioning a banned review: offering a customer a free or discounted product in exchange for a five-star review, and offering a refund or gift card to someone who left a negative review if they change it. It says that asking a member of staff to write a review counts as commissioning. It also says that encouraging only satisfied customers to leave reviews can amount to cherry-picking, and that traders should not stop and start review requests arbitrarily or make settling a complaint conditional on the customer not leaving a negative review.
The same guidance is clear about what is allowed. Asking customers for reviews without steering what they say, such as emailing customers generally to ask whether they would like to leave one, is not prohibited. Incentives are legal under the Act if the review is clearly labelled as incentivised and still honest, but Google’s policy forbids them on Google regardless, so for a Google review the answer is still no.
The CMA can fine businesses up to 10% of global turnover for breaching consumer law under the new regime. The practical point for a small business is simpler than the number: the review policy you would follow anyway to stay on Google’s right side is the one that keeps you on the right side of the law.
Replying to a bad review
Google’s own advice on replies is short and sound: be polite and professional, keep it brief, never share the reviewer’s private information, apologise where it is warranted, be honest about what went wrong without taking blame for what was outside your control, and sign with your name.
Remember who the reply is for. The person who left the review has usually made up their mind. The reader is the next customer, deciding whether you are someone they can deal with when something goes wrong.
A fair complaint. The customer is right, or partly right. Say so.
Thank you for telling us, Mrs Hughes, and I’m sorry. We said Tuesday and arrived on Thursday, and we should have rung you as soon as we knew. That’s on us. I’ve changed how we confirm dates so it doesn’t happen again. If anything about the work itself isn’t right, please ring me directly. [your name]
An unfair complaint. The facts are wrong, or the complaint is about something you never agreed to do. State the facts once, without heat.
Thanks for the review. For anyone reading: the quote we agreed covered the bathroom ceiling only, and the hallway damp was outside it, which we pointed out on the day and offered to quote for separately. I’m sorry we didn’t make that clearer in writing, and the offer still stands. [your name]
What both have in common: no argument, no customer details beyond a name they already gave, no offer conditional on removing the review, and nothing a stranger would read as defensive. Google says replies are usually checked within ten minutes but can occasionally take up to 30 days to appear.
Reporting reviews that break the rules
You cannot delete a review because you disagree with it. Google says only reviews that violate its policies can be removed, and that it does not arbitrate disputes between businesses and customers.
Reviews that are spam, abusive or written with a conflict of interest can be reported. From the profile, open Read reviews, choose the report option beside the review and pick a reason. Google also provides a separate Reviews Management Tool that does the same job. Assessment can take several days.
If someone threatens a wave of negative reviews unless you pay them, Google has a separate route for reporting extortion. Do not pay.
What reviews will and will not do
Google’s page on local ranking says more reviews and positive ratings can help a business’s local ranking. It also says ranking depends mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, and that nobody can pay for a better position. Reviews are one input, and their larger job is persuading the person who has already found you.
A new website does not change any of this, but it can put the review link where customers will see it, and it should not contradict what the reviews say about you. If you pay someone to look after the site, adding the link is the kind of change a website monthly fee should cover. The free audit checks your website and profile together. For the rest of the picture, see how long until a new site shows up on Google and what you are actually buying.
Official sources
Google’s own pages for the points above:
If you want someone to look at your own website, the free review tells you the three things we would change first.
