Review gating
Gating means asking customers how their experience was and only sending the happy ones to a public review page. Google's policies discourage selectively soliciting positive reviews, and some consumer protection authorities have also taken action against the practice. Ask everyone the same way.
If you want private feedback, offer a feedback form separately, without steering people away from public reviews.
Incentives and discounts
Offering money, gifts, discounts or entries in a prize draw in exchange for reviews is prohibited by Google's policy and by many other platforms. Even a modest reward can be a violation. Thank customers sincerely, but do not pay for opinions.
A thank-you after the fact, not tied to the content or rating of a review, is a gray area, so keep it simple and avoid it.
Never write reviews of your own business, ask friends or relatives to pretend to be customers, or buy reviews from a service. These are against platform rules and, in some places, against consumer law. Competitors can also report you.
Do not post reviews of competitors, positive or negative, to influence ratings.
Employees and conflicts of interest
Staff may leave reviews only if they genuinely are customers and disclose the connection where required. In general, avoid it. Do not require employees to post reviews as a condition of the job.
Agencies and vendors who post on your behalf can expose you to risk as well. Ask them how they obtain reviews.
Review sharing and display
Platforms have rules about how you display reviews on your own site. Copying a few testimonials with permission is common, but showing a curated set that hides all the negative ones while claiming to show all could be misleading. Do not alter the text.
If you use a widget that pulls live reviews, check that it follows the platform's terms.
Build a clean process
Write a one-page review policy for your team: ask every customer, use the same wording, never offer rewards, reply to all reviews, and send complaints to a person who can resolve them. Train new staff on it.
If you are unsure about a rule in your industry, check the platform's current policy or ask an attorney.
What to do if you already slipped
If you have offered incentives or filtered customers in the past, stop now, document the change in your process, and do not delete honest reviews. Remove any copy that promises rewards. If a platform has warned you, follow its instructions and reply factually. For legal questions about advertising or consumer protection rules in your field, speak to an attorney, because the rules differ by place and by industry.
Revisit the policy each year, because platform rules evolve. Bookmark the official review guidelines of every site where you collect feedback, and ask a new hire to read them during onboarding so that good habits spread across the whole team.
Common questions
Can I thank customers with a small gift?
It is safest not to offer anything in connection with a review. Keep thanks to words.
Is it okay to ask customers to review on several sites?
Yes, as long as the invitation is identical for everyone and nobody is told what to write.
This guide is general information. Search engines change how they work and their guidelines; check Google's current documentation for your situation. Nobody can guarantee a ranking.