Bought or asked: what is left after a year
Bought
- Many in a week, from new accounts
- Google's filter removes them
- Risk of a suspended profile
- Unfair commercial practice since 2022
Asked after every job
- A few a week, from real customers
- They stay
- Replies build trust
- Always allowed, without a reward
Real reviews a year, at 40 jobs a monthHow often a customer says yes when you ask
- 1 in 3160
- 1 in 596
- 1 in 1048
What Google bans
Google calls it fake engagement and spells out what is not allowed: reviews paid for in money or in kind; reviews posted from several accounts at one person's request; reviews prompted by a discount, a gift or a chance to win. You may not discourage negative reviews, ask only happy customers, set review quotas for staff or tell people what to write. Reviews by employees, former employees or family count as a conflict of interest. Google removes such reviews and can suspend the profile or terminate the account.
Buying does not pay off in practice either. Google filters suspicious patterns, such as many reviews in a short time from new accounts, and tightens those filters regularly, as in the September 2026 spam update. Bought reviews often vanish within days; why genuine reviews sometimes disappear too is in why are Google reviews disappearing. And AI assistants read reviews when they recommend a business, as how to get found in ChatGPT explains: a string of fake reviews can work against you there as well, because trust, what Google calls E-E-A-T, counts there too.
What the law says
| Market | Rule | In force since |
|---|---|---|
| European Union | Omnibus Directive: submitting or commissioning false consumer reviews, and claiming reviews come from real customers without reasonable checks, are always unfair practices; in coordinated EU actions the maximum fine is at least 4 percent of annual turnover | 28 May 2022 |
| United Kingdom | Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act: writing, commissioning or publishing fake reviews is banned, enforced by the CMA with fines up to 10 percent of global turnover | 6 April 2025 |
| United States | FTC rule on consumer reviews: buying or selling fake reviews and paying for reviews with a set sentiment, with civil penalties per violation | 21 October 2024 |
Selling into several of those markets means the strictest rule is the one that counts. The same honest route works everywhere: ask every customer, reward nobody.
A fixed route for asking
The honest alternative is simple and works better than you expect: ask every customer, at the moment they are happy, with a link that opens the review window at once. Make that link in a minute with the Google review link generator, also as a QR code for your invoice or counter. How often customers say yes depends on how you ask: a spoken request plus a message with the link the same day gets far more than a general call on your website.
- Put the review link in your email signature, your confirmation email and on your invoice.
- Agree that everyone on the team asks in person after a job went well, without quotas.
- Send a short message with the link the same day.
- Reply to every review within a week, the negative ones too; how to handle an unfair one is in can I remove Google reviews.
More ways to ask without being pushy are in get more Google reviews. If your profile is not right yet, start there: create a Google Business Profile, and if it does not appear, why is my Google Business Profile not showing. A Google Business Profile is free, and its reviews are the first thing a new customer sees.
Review agencies, contests and competitors
An agency promises fifty genuine reviews a month. Is that legal?
If the agency writes the reviews or has them written by people who never used your business, no: those are fake consumer reviews. An agency may help you ask your own customers.
Can I run a prize draw among everyone who leaves a review?
No. A chance to win is a reward too, and Google removes reviews that came in that way.
What if a competitor buys reviews?
Report the suspicious reviews to Google. With a clear pattern you can also alert the consumer authority in your country, which enforces the rules on unfair practices.