It may be tempting to ask family and friends to leave reviews or in some cases providing discounts (or even paying) for positive review. This article presents common review schemes and the consequences that Google may inflict on your local presence should they perceive reviews to be inauthentic.

If Google determines that your reviews were collected in conflict with their terms of services, they may delete all of your reviews they perceive to be connected to the offense. Google follows the practices of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) who also deal with the regulation of reviews. Google follows there best practices and have made review contests and other schemes a violation of their terms of service.  Here are the most common of these scams to avoid when looking for reviews for your listings.

What to avoid

Review Contests:

This is the act of entering a user into a raffle or prize pool when they leave a review for you. Not only is this super popular with businesses, it is extremely illegal. This is due to the fact that you are incentivizing clients and customers for reviews, which is a direct violation of Google's Terms of Service. “Please note that it is against Google TOS Policies to offer or accept money, products, or services to write reviews for a business or to write negative reviews about a competitor.” Any attempt that is viewed by Google, they will take steps to negate the contest by removing reviews from your listing. You will more than likely be notified by Google via the email associated with the listing doing review contests.

Discounted or Free Services

Google does not permit you or your business from offering a reviewer any discount on services or products in exchange for a review. Once reviewed, Google can remove all reviews associated with this attempt to generate reviews.

Review Swaps

A review swap in the most simple terms is "You scratch my back, I scratch yours". It may seem like an easy way to generate reviews, however it goes against Googles Terms of Service directly. Google’s TOS states, “Your content should reflect your genuine experience at the location and should not be posted just to manipulate a place’s ratings.” A review could be considered violating TOS if they can verify that the reviews left don't reflect a genuine experience, or are posted to manipulate the overall ratings of the listing.

Asking Friends and Family for Reviews

This one is the most egregious and should not be attempted. This is the same as review swaps, this is pure manipulation and will results in a TOS violation from Google, removing those reviews from your listing.

Review Gating

This is the method of asking customers to fill out a survey and then and only if they score high enough, would they be asked to post a review online to your listing. If a customer answers the survey and it does not reach the threshold, then the survey will be used as private feedback. Google has reiterated their stance on this. If Google receives reports of businesses review gating, they delete all of their reviews (not just the ones deemed to violate TOS). Your reputation management tool provider doesn’t get dinged, the business’ GBP listing does.

It is impossible to try and stop an upset customer from posting negative feedback online. They will find a way to share their experience online. You also need negative feedback so that you can grow and improve your business. We have written an article on How to Respond to Negative Reviews that gives you the best practices when replying.

‍