Almost every page that ranks for this question is published by a company selling review software, which is a problem, because several of the practices at issue are things review software does. So here is the plain version, taken from the two rulebooks that actually apply, with the marketing left out.
There are two, and they are not the same rulebook. Google's content policy decides what stays on your profile and whether your profile keeps working. A federal trade rule decides whether the practice is lawful. You can satisfy one and still be caught by the other.
Rulebook one: Google's content policy
Google's position starts from a single idea, which is that a contribution should reflect a genuine experience at the place. Everything else is that idea applied.
Paid and incentivised reviews are out. Google prohibits reviews that have been paid for, directly or in kind, and states that a business may not offer incentives such as payment, discounts, or free goods and services in exchange for posting a review. The same prohibition covers paying someone to revise a review or to take a negative one down. A prize draw for reviewers, a free coffee for a review, a discount code sent on submission: all the same rule.
Selective soliciting is out. This is the one that surprises people, because it is the mechanic sold as a feature. Google's guidance for businesses says not to discourage or prohibit negative reviews and not to selectively solicit positive reviews from customers. Asking every customer is compliant. Filtering who gets asked by how happy you think they are is not.
Pressure and scripting are out. Google's guidance also tells businesses not to require or pressure customers to leave a review while they are on the premises, and not to request that specific content be included. The tablet at the counter that a customer is watched while using, and the card that asks for a particular staff member to be named, both fall here.
Reviewing yourself is out. Owners reviewing their own business, staff reviewing their workplace, and reviews from people with a competing or contractual interest are conflicts of interest under the same policy.
What Google does about it
Removal of the offending reviews is the mild end. Google says a profile found to be violating its fake engagement policy may face restrictions: it can be stopped from receiving new reviews or ratings for a period, existing reviews or ratings can be unpublished, and a warning can be shown on the profile telling consumers that fake reviews were removed.
Read that last one again, because it is the part that should change behaviour. The penalty is not only losing the reviews you gained improperly. It is a notice on your own listing, in front of every customer who looks you up, saying that fake reviews were taken off it.
Rulebook two: the federal rule
Separately from Google, the Federal Trade Commission's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465, took effect on October 21, 2024. It is a rule with the force of law behind it, not a platform's terms, and courts can impose civil penalties for knowing violations.
Three of its provisions bear directly on how a local business collects reviews.
- Incentives tied to sentiment. The rule prohibits providing compensation or other incentives conditioned on writing a review expressing a particular sentiment, positive or negative. The condition can be implied rather than stated, which means a wink is treated as a term.
- Suppressing negative reviews. It prohibits using unfounded or groundless legal threats, physical threats, intimidation, or certain false accusations to prevent or remove a negative review.
- Misrepresenting the set of reviews. It bars a business from misrepresenting that the reviews shown on its own site represent all or most of the reviews submitted, when reviews have been suppressed based on their rating or their negative sentiment.
That third provision is where review gating and the widget on your homepage meet. Collecting feedback privately is not itself the problem. Publishing a curated wall of it while implying it is the whole picture is what the rule addresses.
So what are you allowed to do
The permitted list is longer than the forbidden one, and it is the entire job:
- Ask every customer, without screening them first.
- Ask after the work is finished, by text or email, or in person.
- Put your review link on receipts, invoices, email signatures, a card at the counter, or a printed QR code.
- Make it one tap rather than a search, using a Google review link that opens the review form directly.
- Reply to reviews, including the bad ones.
- Report a review that breaks a policy, on the policy's own terms rather than because you dislike it. How to remove a Google review covers what that process will and will not do.
None of that requires an incentive and none of it requires filtering. The reason the compliant version works is arithmetic: asking everyone produces more reviews than asking a screened subset of everyone, because the subset is smaller.
Why this product does not gate
ReviewKit sends the review request to every customer you add. There is no sentiment prediction step, no "how did we do" survey that routes the happy ones to Google and the unhappy ones into a private inbox, and no setting to turn one on. That is a deliberate omission rather than a missing feature.
The reasoning is not only compliance. A gate is a bet that your bad reviews are worth hiding, and it costs you the thing reviews are for. A profile with a visible mix reads as a real business, and the reply under a critical review is read by every prospect who scrolls past it.
If you want the routine that goes with the rules, how to get more Google reviews is the practical version, and how to ask customers for reviews has the wording.
Want the compliant version automated? ReviewKit asks every customer, once, after the job. No gating, no contract, cancel in one click. Start free.