Love them or loathe them, online reviews are big business. Your star rating can play a huge part in whether someone chooses you or your biggest competitor.

But we all know reviews aren’t always fair, honest, or in some cases, even real. From glowing fake feedback to defamatory lies, the world of online reviews can get a little sticky, legally speaking. 

In this guide, we’ll break down the key legal rules and cases that every US business and review writer needs to know. 

Reviews and the law: TL;DR

The reality of reviews 

Good, bad, or fake, every online review is subject to the law.

For businesses, it’s not just about customers breaking the law; your own actions can also lead to legal headaches. Staying up-to-date on the law can help you avoid lengthy lawsuits and significant fines. 

Review site guidelines vs. the law 

Let’s start with guidelines. Yelp, Google, Facebook, and all other reputable review sites have extensive terms and conditions and review guidelines for users to follow.

These guidelines aren’t the same as the laws around US reviews. Doing something perfectly legal may get you a telling off, or even a ban from some review platforms if it’s against their own rules.

For example, there is no hard and fast rule around incentivizing for reviews, but platforms, including Yelp, are firmly against this. 

When you sign up for review platforms, you’ll often end up agreeing to their terms and conditions. This means that, in theory, if you break these, you could end up breaking contract law. Of course, what’s included in these terms can’t be illegal, but there’s more to think about than just US law. 

The big one: FTC Final Rule on Consumer Reviews and Testimonials

In October 2024, the Federal Trade Commission announced its long-awaited online reviews Final Rule, formally known as 16 CFR Part 465: Trade Regulation Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials. 

While not the first legislation influencing online reviews, this Final Rule seeks to give clear national guidance on a previously grey area. It aims to stop the buying and selling of fake reviews, with big penalties against “knowing violators”.

This includes: 

Fake reviews and testimonials 

Reviews and testimonials are now banned if they are written by someone who;

1. Doesn’t have real experience of a business
2. Misrepresents their experience. 

This includes AI-generated fake reviews, or fake review attacks by real people aiming to damage or boost a business’s reputation unfairly. It also covers testimonials falsely attributed to celebrities.

It is now against the law to buy and sell fake reviews if the business “knew or should have known” that the reviews or testimonials are false.

Buying positive or negative reviews 

Businesses can no longer give money or other incentives if they are conditional on customers writing a positive (or negative) review. This is true whether the incentive is clear or just implied. 

This doesn’t mean that incentives are completely out of the question. Businesses are still legally allowed to reward customers for leaving a review as long as it’s unconditional on whether this review is positive or negative. However, make sure you check the individual review site’s guidelines before doing this, as platforms including Yelp are against this.

Insider reviews and testimonials 

Reviews written by someone with a vague link to the company are now prohibited. This includes reviews written by managers and officers, and any testimonial that the business should have known was written by a company insider. 

It also imposes rules on reviews solicited from immediate family members, employees, or employees’ families. Transparency is key here. If a family member or employee has a legitimate reason to leave a review, they must disclose their connection to avoid misleading consumers. 

Review suppression 

Businesses are not allowed to threaten or attempt to intimidate review writers to prevent or remove negative reviews. This includes both physical and legal threats. 

The Final Rule also bars businesses from misrepresenting the reviews shown on their website as if they represent all or most submissions, when in fact negative reviews have been hidden or suppressed. 

This doesn’t mean you need to showcase your worst review front and centre on your website. But if you claim you have a perfect five-star rating on Google and this isn’t actually true, you could be fined. 

Company-controlled review websites

The Final Rule makes it clear that businesses can’t pass off websites they own or control as independent sources of reviews or opinions if these include reviews about their own products and services. 

This applies to company-run microsites, blogs, or platforms that look like review hubs but are in fact controlled by the business being reviewed. Even if the reviews themselves are genuine, failing to disclose a link is considered deceptive and could land you a fine. 

Misuse of social media influence indicators

This is not related to online reviews, but the Final Rule also stops the buying and selling of fake indicators of social media influence (e.g., followers or views by bots or hijacked accounts). 

This is limited to cases where the buyer “knew or should have known” that these indicators were fake and misrepresented their influence. This practice can mislead consumers about a business’s popularity or credibility.

Fines and the Final Rule

Rulebreakers won’t face jail time, but instead face civil penalties (AKA fines) of up to $51,744 per violation, or per day for ongoing violations. That’s not exactly pocket change for most local businesses. 

Before the Rule, the FTC needed to jump through additional hoops to bring enforcement under Section 5 of the FTC act. Now, they can fine violators directly. 

It’s important to note that the Final Rule doesn’t replace earlier laws or cover all areas of online reviews law (which we’ll touch on below). Instead, it strengthens the toolkit for the regulators, businesses, and local marketers fighting against fake and unfair review practices. 

For those who want to dig deeper, the FTC has published the full 163-page ruling, which lays out the specifics of what is and isn’t allowed. 

Other US laws and online reviews 

While the FTC’s Final Rule on Consumer Reviews and Testimonials is a strong cover all for fake reviews and misrepresentation, it isn’t the first rule to touch the murky world of online reviews. 

Previous laws and cases already tackle some of the more pertinent issues surrounding reviews, while the Final Rule covers the gaps.

Other laws to be aware of include: 

• Defamation laws
• Anti-SLAPP rules
• The Consumer Review Fairness Act (CRFA) 2016
• Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act

We’ll cover each in brief below.

Defamation laws

When it comes to online reviews and the law, one of the biggest legal risks comes down to defamation. In the U.S., defamation is defined as “a statement that injures a third party’s reputation”. To prove defamation, it must be: 

1. A false statement pretending to be a fact
2. Published or communicated to a third person
3. Be malicious or negligent in its intent (i.e., they knew it was wrong or should have checked)
4. Caused harm to the reputation of the subject 

Opinions (“The food was bland”) are protected by the First Amendment, but false claims presented as fact (“The food was laced with arsenic”) can cross the line into defamation. 

Sharing a genuine bad experience is protected. But making up or exaggerating facts to damage a business’s reputation could land a reviewer in court. 

Anti-SLAPP rules 

SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation) have been used to intimidate or silence people through costly and baseless legal action. 

In the past, some businesses have attempted to sue customers that left negative (but perfectly truthful) reviews. Even when these cases had no real chance in court, the threat of legal proceedings can intimidate reviewers into taking down their reviews. This kind of intimidation not only harms the reviewer, but also stops other consumers getting a full picture of a business. 

The introduction of Anti-SLAPP laws aimed to stop people from using threats of lawsuits to those exercising their First Amendment rights. These laws remain in place and continue to protect free speech and public participation in honest opinions and criticisms.

Consumer Review Fairness Act

The Consumer Review Fairness Act (CRFA) 2016 is a federal law that protects consumers’ rights to share honest experiences online. It made it illegal for businesses to add clauses to contracts that prevent customers from posting honest reviews or penalize them for negative feedback. It also tackled the requirement for customers to give up intellectual property rights in reviews. 

This law meant that customers could speak freely about their experiences without being punished or fined by businesses. 

Like with the FTC Final Ruling, breaking the terms of the CRFA can lead to fines. 

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act

When it comes to online reviews, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is one of the most important laws businesses probably won’t have heard of. Essentially, it shields websites and review platforms from being held liable for content posted by users. 

This means if a customer leaves a negative review, a business cannot then sue Yelp or Google for hosting the review. If a business is unhappy with the legality of the review, it must either take the reviewer to court or attempt to get the review taken down if it’s against the site’s terms and guidelines. 

Review responses and the law 

It’s not just the practices surrounding reviews and what customers can write, but also how businesses choose to respond. Responding to reviews is a key part of managing your online reputation, but these responses are still bound by the law.

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CRPA)

California’s CCPA and CRPA privacy laws protect consumers’ personal information and regulate how businesses can use it. When responding to reviews, avoid sharing any details that could identify a customer or reveal private information. 

Other states including Virginia, Connecticut, and Utah have their own privacy protections in place. Avoid the risk of a lawsuit no matter the location of your customers and never disclose personal information without consent. 

HIIPA

For healthcare businesses, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a critical consideration when responding to online reviews. 

HIPAA protects patients’ private health information, meaning you can’t share any details about a patient or their treatment in a review response, even if the patient has publicly shared their own details. Avoid mentioning appointments, treatments, diagnoses, or any other information that could identify the patient. Even thanking a patient by name can be risky. 

If a reviewer raises a serious concern, the safest approach is to address it in private by asking the reviewer to contact you directly. This way, there is no chance of breaking the rules. 

GLBA

Financial services businesses such as banks, credit unions, or lenders should be familiar with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) when responding to reviews. GLBA protects consumers’ private personal financial information, including balances, credit history, and other sensitive financial data. 

This means businesses can’t disclose any financial information in review responses, even if the original review raised specific concerns on these. Like with HIPAA compliance, the best way to tackle issues is to encourage the reviewer to get in touch privately. 

How to handle illegal reviews

Reviews sometimes cross the line into defamation, false accusations, or harassment. When this happens, it’s important for businesses to act carefully and legally. Follow our step-by-step plan to make sure things don’t get worse. 

1. Stay calm and assess the situation

Start by assessing whether the review is truly illegal or just hurtful. A review only crosses into lawbreaking if it includes defamation or involves threats or harassment. As you assess, keep in mind the Streisand Effect: could the effort to silence the review actually draw more attention to it? 

2. Document everything

Before taking action, make sure you have a full record of the review. Save screenshots, note the date and time, and capture any related correspondence with the reviewer. This evidence is essential if you escalate to the review platform or go down the legal route. 

3. Contact the review platform

Review platforms, including Yelp and Google, have procedures for reporting reviews that violate their terms of service and content guidelines.

Provide clear evidence that the review is false or illegal. Be prepared that platforms are often cautious and may only act when the violation is clear-cut.

4. Get legal advice

If you think the review may break the law, consult a lawyer who specializes in defamation to help you decide if your case has merit. Next steps may include a cease and desist letter or even pursuing a full lawsuit. 

Keep in mind that the bar is high: courts generally won’t punish opinions, so legal action tends to only be successful if you can prove the review is false. 

5. Get more reviews 

While you’re working your way through potentially lengthy legal and review platform processes, work on strengthening your overall reputation. Encourage recent customers to share their genuine experiences so that the illegal review has less visibility and effect on your overall star rating. 

Stay smart, stay legal

Online reviews are a powerful tool for businesses, but the legal landscape in the US around them is complex and constantly evolving. Between the FTC’s Final Rule on Consumer Reviews, defamation and anti-SLAPP protections, and state-specific privacy laws, it’s easy to get tangled in legal grey areas. 

The good news? Most honest reviews and responsible responses are perfectly fine. Don’t buy fake reviews or indulge in dodgy practices, and you’ll stay on the right side of the law. 

Please remember nothing here replaces professional legal advice. When in doubt, a qualified lawyer is the only person who can guide you safely through online reviews and the law. 

In addition to your reviews working hard for you from an SEO perspective and on review platforms, they can also be put to work on your own website. Embedding reviews on your site is one of the simplest ways to Showcase Reviews. It also unlocks a number of specific benefits:

• research shows that displaying reviews on product pages increases confidence levels;
• having user-generated reviews on a landing page increases the perception of trustworthiness; and
• reviews help shoppers to feel more comfortable, which means they’re happy to spend more money. 

Remaining Compliant When Embedding Reviews

Because reviews have such an impact on the consumer purchase process and trust levels, it’s important to ensure that they’re being used in an ethical and legal manner. 

Newly updated Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines state it’s not acceptable for businesses to only share positive reviews, nor to show only those reviews which exceed a certain star rating. 

The FTC also states that any compensated reviews must be clearly marked as such and incentives shouldn’t be offered to guarantee a positive review. 

How to Embed Facebook Reviews on a Website

With an estimated 2.93 billion active users each month, Facebook reviews (now known as Recommendations) have the power to make an impact. 

Embedding Facebook reviews on a website can no longer be done directly from your Business Page. Instead, you’ll need to use an appropriate widget.

Facebook Reviews widget

You can use a widget to embed Facebook reviews on a page:

• If your site is built with WordPress, you can use a plugin like Facebook Reviews Widget. 
• For other platforms, such as WIX, Shopify, and Squarespace, you can use a widget such as TagEmbed. 

Embed Yelp Reviews on Your Website  

Because this platform is dedicated to connecting local people with local businesses, it makes sense to embed Yelp reviews on your website.

In addition to the usual benefits, you’re also making it easy for potential customers to read about the experiences of consumers in their very own neighborhood. 

Here’s how to embed Yelp reviews on a website:

Step 1: You don’t need to be signed into Yelp — simply type your business name or location into the search bar:

Step 2: Scroll down the page, past the location information, amenities, and other information until you hit the reviews section. You’ll see a dropdown menu to sort the reviews. If you’re interested in your latest reviews hit ‘newest first’. 

Step 4: When you find a review you want to embed, click on the three dots to trigger a dropdown menu with two options: 

• Share review (which allows you to share to either your Facebook or Twitter, or via email to a specified recipient).
• Embed review (which is the one we want here).

Step 5: Click and a pop-up box will appear with the code to copy and preview: 

Step 6: Go to your website’s back-end and paste the HTML into the page you’d like the Yelp review to appear on. 

Yelp Widget for Website Use 

If you don’t want to follow the manual process to embed Yelp reviews on your website, you can use a Yelp widget instead:

• For WordPress users, the RichPlugins Yelp reviews widget is a popular option.
• For other websites, Elfsight works with a range of different website builders, as does Taggbox.  

Display Google Reviews on Your Website

Google is arguably the most important review platform for local businesses, so it makes good business sense to display reviews from local search users within the pages of your own site. 

Can you embed Google reviews on your website?

Although you can view and respond to your reviews within your Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business) dashboard, Google no longer offers the option to embed reviews directly on your website. 

Instead, you’ll either need to use the Google Business Profile API or a Google Reviews Widget. Successfully using the API requires a good grasp of coding, so it’s not recommended for beginners. 

Embedding Google Reviews with a Widget

While Google doesn’t offer its own widget to embed Google reviews on your website, there are a number of third-party widgets to automate the process:

• If you’re running a WordPress site, you’ll find dozens of plugin options, such as Widgets For Google Reviews.
• If you’re on another platform, such as Squarespace, Shopify, or Wix, you can use Elfsight, Review Widget, or Showcase Reviews. 

Embedding Tripadvisor Reviews with a Widget

Travel reviews don’t just help you to get more reservations — they’re also a powerful tool for unlocking extra budget.

With half a billion monthly visitors, Tripadvisor is a must-have when showcasing reviews on your own website. The platform does have several of its own widgets available, but not all can be used by every business.

Step 1: You’ll first need to determine which set of widgets is available to you, as Tripadvisor has widgets for businesses and widgets for destinations. 

• Business widgets allow you to display your reviews, including star ratings and snippets from your reviews, as well as to encourage more reviews. 
• Destination widgets direct the visitor to read your reviews. 

To find out which one you’re eligible for, go to https://www.tripadvisor.com/Widgets and enter your business name in the search box: 

Step 2: Select the desired widget and copy the code that shows up on your screen. 

Step 3: Paste into your site as HTML where you’d like the reviews to appear. 

Embedding Booking.com Reviews with a Widget

Similarly to Tripadvisor, you’ll need to use a widget to embed Booking.com reviews on your website. Booking.com doesn’t offer its own widgets to publicly display reviews, so you’ll need to use a third-party solution: 

• For WordPress users, Widgets For Booking.com Reviews has both free and premium options. 
• If your site isn’t built in WordPress, then Repuso and Elfsight will both work on a number of popular CMS platforms. 

Embedding Better Business Bureau Reviews with a Widget

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) attempts to vet every review left on its platform in order to maintain trust and accuracy.

As part of its Standards for Trust, the company estimates that six out of ten received reviews end up being posted as a result of this moderation policy. 

BrightLocal research confirms that the BBB is the most trusted review site amongst local consumers. This means that your BBB reviews are a powerful asset, with your best reviews inherently considered to be trustworthy and genuine. 

Given that the BBB also allows you to comment before a review is posted, make the most of this resource by embedding these reviews on your website. 

While there’s no manual way to embed reviews, you can get around this with a widget:

• If you’re running a WordPress website, the Reviews for Schema Plugin will allow you to embed your BBB reviews with a little effort. 
• For non-WordPress sites, Repuso is a popular option. 

Embedding Foursquare Reviews with a Widget

With more than 50 million active Foursquare users looking for places to go locally, this platform’s reviews could be a valuable source of new business for you.

One helpful feature of Foursquare is that users can share their tips and pictures of the places they’ve visited and highlight what they liked best about a particular place. This makes FourSquare user feedback especially useful for those looking to drive foot traffic to their location. It’s a great tool for winning new customers thanks to the power of peer recommendations.

Currently, it’s not possible to manually embed Foursquare reviews on a website, so WordPress users should choose a widget for this task:

• The Reviews For Schema plugin will allow you to show Foursquare reviews on your chosen web page.
• The TrustIndex Widget has been designed with Foursquare specifically in mind.

Embed your Yellow Pages Reviews with a Widget

The Yellow Pages name is synonymous with local businesses and the website attracts millions of visitors each month. 

If you’ve already got a great store of Yellow Pages reviews, embedding them on your site can help to harness the brand’s credibility and trust. 

The easiest way to do this is via a widget:

• Plugins like Repuso can help.
• Check out BrightLocal’s Showcase Reviews embedding tool.

How to Embed Trustpilot Reviews on Your Website

More than 400,000 businesses use the Trustpilot platform to collect reviews, making it an established and familiar name for consumers. 

The Trustpilot simple star rating is instantly recognizable and provides a quick and easy way for local consumers to understand your review profile at a glance. 

To get the official Trustpilot Widget — known as TrustBox — simply log into your account and select widgets under the ‘Showcase’ section of your dashboard. The wizard will then walk you through all of the required steps for your chosen widget. 

Trustpilot offers a range of options when it comes to how your reviews appear on your site. For example, you can select to display your most recent reviews, your average star rating, or reviews specific to certain customer segments.

Try a few of the widgets on offer to see which design performs best for you! 

If you don’t want to use Trustpilot’s own offering, you can also use other widgets, such as Elfsight, JustReview, or Repuso. 

Embed Reviews from OpenTable 

The ‘largest and most powerful diner network’, OpenTable serves more than 1.6 billion diners per year, many of whom dine out at least once per week. 

If you run a bar, restaurant, or another hospitality venue, embedding OpenTable reviews on your website can help to attract diners.

As with many of the other platforms covered in this guide, there’s no direct way to take your preferred OpenTable reviews and manually add them to your site. You’ll need to use a widget to do that for you:

• Elfsight is one option available to users of WordPress, Shopify, Weebly, Wix, Webflow, BigCommerce, Squarespace, Joomla, and Opencart.
• Repuso can also be configured to display your venue’s OpenTable reviews.

While it can be time-consuming to select individual reviews or test different widgets, the benefits in terms of increased conversions and higher basket values make this a worthwhile task. 

Reviews are known to be intrinsically linked to local business success. This relates to how prominently your business appears in the local search results alongside what consumers think of your business and whether they decide to give you their custom. Because of this, lots of companies have started to think more creatively about how to request reviews.

Where an email might once have been the standard, today a variety of methods are used. This includes postcards, SMS messages, in-store and point-of-sale displays, giveaways, and, of course, email.

However, what you can and can’t do to obtain reviews, and what those reviews can and can’t say, differs between platforms. If you get it wrong, then the punishment meted out to your business can be harsh. That means it’s important to always be aware of Google’s review guidelines, Yelp’s review guidelines, and all other platforms that matter to your business. 

Google Review Guidelines

Google offers a fairly detailed list of what it does and doesn’t accept from both businesses and reviewers. Most fall under the ‘Prohibited and Restricted Content’ guidelines, but Google has also introduced key elements to its ‘Format Specific Criteria’ rules to outlaw practices such as review gating.

No Review Gating

Prohibiting review gating means that local businesses can’t use a third-party tool to filter out negative reviews. Nor can they ask for reviews from customers known to be happy with their products or services. In the past, brands have been able to cherry-pick positive reviews by using software to funnel customers who say they have had a negative experience towards private feedback, and those indicating a positive experience to a public review platform like Google. This, of course, creates a false impression of the business and skews reviews, making them less useful to other customers.

Don’t Review Your Own Business

Reviews are intended to be honest and unbiased accounts of genuine customer experiences, therefore reviewing your own business (or asking staff to review your business by posing as a customer) is against Google review guidelines.

Don’t Review Competitors

Google states that “Content that has been posted by a competitor to undermine a business or product’s reputation” is deceptive. It’s also a means of black hat SEO and is unethical — Google says content which violates this rule will be removed.  

At the more severe end of the scale, if you’re found to be a repeat offender, then it’s possible that your website may be subjected to a Google penalty. This will undoubtedly have a detrimental impact on your online visibility and, by extension, your website traffic and overall sales figures.

Don’t Offer or Accept Money in Exchange for Reviews

You can’t incentivize customers to leave a review for your business by offering to pay them to do so. This obviously creates an environment where the reviewer is more likely to leave a glowing review, undermining the entire concept of fair and honest feedback.

Again, Google doesn’t spell out what the penalty for repeatedly violating this rule is, besides the standard warning that content in breach of these guidelines will be removed. However, penalties and even banishment from Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business) aren’t out of the question, depending on the seriousness of the infringement.

Don’t Solicit Reviews from Customers in Bulk

Unlike some platforms, there isn’t a Google reviews solicitation policy prohibiting businesses from requesting reviews (but this should be done equally with all customers requested to leave a review). Requesting reviews in bulk isn’t against Google guidelines, but it is bad practice. This is because a local business needs to have a steady stream of genuine, recent reviews rather than a bulk influx every so often.

To abide by this rule, you shouldn’t send a mass email to your entire mailing list requesting a review. Again, Google’s focus here is on ensuring reviews are accurate and genuine. A mass mailout can’t guarantee accuracy given that some recipients may have purchased from you years ago.

While it might be tempting to try and bolster your review count in one swift move, being consistent about requesting reviews when a transaction is completed ensures they’re more authentic, useful, and accurate.

You can read more about this in our guide.

Yelp Review Guidelines

Yelp’s review guidelines are very similar to Google’s in that they outlaw inappropriate content, promotional content, conflicts of interest, and payment for or solicitation of reviews. One key area of difference with Google’s rules is that Yelp’s guidelines for business owners state that businesses shouldn’t ask for reviews.

Don’t Solicit Reviews or Offer to Pay for Them

Solicitation is a big deal for Yelp. It has two dedicated pages to explian why this is a no-no, with an overview in its support centre and a full blog post dedicated to the topic in its newsroom. 

It says that Yelp reviews are “designed to highlight reviews from people who want to share their genuine experiences — without being asked or tempted. Proactively asking for reviews may hurt your Yelp rating because our automated software may not recommend reviews that seem to be prompted or encouraged by the business. Also, many businesses only ask happy customers for reviews, which leads to biased ratings. Yelp’s software tries to identify any reviews that appear to have been requested, and not recommend them.”

Yelp says that payment can encourage a reviewer to leave a false or misleading review when such praise may not be genuinely deserved, thereby skewering the perceptions of consumers.

On the flip side, you also can’t offer incentives for reviewers to remove a review they’ve left for your business. 

No Review Gating 

While you shouldn’t be asking for reviews at all, review gating also isn’t permitted by Yelp. The Yelp review guidelines say that you can’t “ask for reviews after requesting customer feedback in other places like surveys or contact forms. While it can be tempting to ask this of customers, it is against Yelp’s policy and unfair to other businesses.”

What happens if you contravene this guideline?

If you do specifically request that your customers leave a review on Yelp, the platform may take action against you. Yelp says its software can recognize where a review has been solicited and will treat those reviews as less trustworthy. They will be removed to the ‘not recommended’ portion of your Yelp page and won’t count towards your Yelp star rating. 

What’s more, if Yelp has evidence that a review has been compensated, a Compensated Activity Alert will appear on the business profile, overtly telling viewers that cash or other incentives have been offered to the reviewer. 

Conflicts of Interest

It’s against Yelp guidelines to write a review of your own business, ask an employee to review you, or leave a poor review for a competitor. It also says that you shouldn’t review a business belonging to a relative or a friend, or within a networking group, as this doesn’t lend itself to fairness or objectivity. Yelp’s recommendation software has been further developed to help it better spot reviews that could have a conflict of interest. 

Facebook Review Guidelines

Facebook now refers to reviews as Recommendations. They’re a simple yes/no answer rather than the traditional star and comment format. Consumers can leave rich endorsements with their recommendations, which includes text and images as well as the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ choice.

Spam

Facebook’s Community Standards include a ‘no spam’ rule. The company says it works hard to limit any content that is designed to deceive or mislead users. This means that you shouldn’t incentivise others to leave lots of positive reviews about your business (or spam competitors’ profiles with negative reviews).

Misrepresentation

Facebook has a specific Integrity policy which sets out requirements for users to only create a Facebook account with their true identity. Your Facebook account must be “the name you go by in real life”. Likewise, this policy prohibits users from creating multiple accounts, giving a false date of birth, creating an inauthentic profile, or impersonating others.

This policy, among other things, effectively prohibits you from creating multiple accounts under various aliases to give fake recommendations to your business. Likewise, you can’t ask other people to create a second account to give you an additional recommendation. Those found to be in continual breach of this policy will have their account disabled. 

Incentivized Reviews

Under its Pages, Groups and Events policy, Facebook states “Pages, groups and events must not incentivize people to misuse Facebook features or functionality.”  This means that you shouldn’t offer consumers an incentive to leave a positive Facebook Recommendation, such as a cash payment, a discount, or free product or service. 

Tripadvisor Review Guidelines

Unlike Yelp, Tripadvisor doesn’t penalize businesses for asking customers to review their experience. In fact, it encourages businesses to ask for Tripadvisor reviews and says that recent reviews are more beneficial in its calculations to rank popularity.

The platform goes as far as to provide a number of free tools to help businesses reach out to guests for a Tripadvisor review. These tools include pre-designed custom reminder cards, flyers, a review collection tool called Review Express, a widget, and a Facebook app.

However, it has strict policies against incentivized reviews and a dedicated team of fraud investigators that tackles paid review fraud (a crime that can result in jail time), which includes the buying and selling of fake reviews.

Paid Review Fraud

Tripadvisor states:

The buying or selling of fake reviews — known as paid review fraud — is not only dishonest, but also illegal in many countries. Fortunately, because of our highly evolved detection and deterrent techniques, the amount of fraud attempted on TripAdvisor is extremely small. We take any attempts at review fraud very seriously, and with over 15 years’ experience, we are the industry leaders at catching it.

It can be tempting to buy a few fake reviews in order to bolster your Tripadvisor rating, especially as newer reviews count more towards your popularity score. A number of companies do offer paid reviews, but as Tripadvisor notes, this is an illegal practice in several countries and can result in a prison sentence.

If you do feel tempted to break the rules and buy reviews for your hotel or hospitality business, Tripadvisor says that it can distinguish between a genuine submission and a purchased review, and can automatically trigger an investigation from this.

The platform works with third-party sites and advertising services to track down companies selling reviews and will even go undercover, pretending to be a hotel owner, for example, to gather evidence. If the fraud team detects paid reviews on your listing or detects suspicious activity, it will approach you to gather more information.

The paid reviewer’s account will be blacklisted from Tripadvisor and your own account and business profile may be marked with a red badge. This is the most severe form of punishment and warns Tripadvisor users that a pattern of suspicious review behavior has been detected. This warning can seriously negatively impact your reputation and business.

If you’re found to be offering incentives for reviews, those reviews will be removed.

Other punishments include a loss of rankings in Tripadvisor searches and disqualifications from TripAdvisor awards.

Incentivized Reviews

Offering a reward or preferential treatment to a guest in order to secure a review will land you in hot water. This policy also prevents you from rewarding customers for reviews by entering them into a draw or any kind of raffle, offering a reduced rate or discount on a future stay, or promising an upgrade or free use of any paid-for facilities.

Tripadvisor monitors for incentivized reviews in a number of ways, including direct reports from the community, investigations by a dedicated review fraud team, and screening technology.

If you’re found to be in breach of these guidelines, the reviews in question will be removed from your Tripadvisor profile. 

Biased Reviews and Blackmail

Paid and incentivized reviews also fall under Tripadvisor’s biased reviews policy. Any action on the part of a guest to blackmail a business with the threat of a bad review is also considered to be biased. This also applies to reviews posted by someone affiliated with the business (such as a family member, friend, or employee). Tripadvisor calls this practice ‘review boosting’.

If the tracking system spots a biased review, it will not be published and an investigation will be opened.

Review Vandalism

Tripadvisor prohibits anyone associated with a business from reviewing similar businesses nearby. It says businesses or individuals submitting false reviews about competitors are committing Review Vandalism and will be subject to harsh penalties if proven.  

Better Business Bureau Review Guidelines

Research indicates that the Better Business Bureau (BBB) is one of the most trusted review platforms. Like other review platforms, the BBB has its own guidelines to govern business reviews. 

Fake Reviews

BBB vets all reviews before they’re published online. When a review is submitted, it will validate the email address or phone number of the reviewer. 

As a second step, the business concerned is also asked to confirm that the interaction took place and respond to comments.

No Anonymous Reviews

BBB won’t allow reviews to be posted from anonymous users, although it won’t publish any identifying details pertaining to the reviewer when reviews are accepted.

No Paid Reviews

BBB doesn’t allow incentivized reviews, so you can’t compensate customers in any way.

The BBB website doesn’t specify if any additional punishments are given to businesses who breach the review rules, but it’s clear that reviews which are fake or paid for won’t be published. This means that you’ll be wasting time and money if you go down that route.

Yellow Pages Review Guidelines

Yellow Pages says that it doesn’t monitor or censor reviews, but expects both businesses and reviewers to abide by its review guidelines and policy. These regulations prohibit business owners from paying for reviews, reviewing their own business, reviewing a competitor’s business, or astroturfing.

Astroturfing

While Yellow Pages doesn’t monitor reviews or censor them, business owners can report reviews if they’re defamatory or fake. Abusing this by trying to have all negative reviews removed and leaving only positive ones is known as astroturfing. The platform says doing so misleads customers and can be damaging to your online reputation.

The platform doesn’t outline specific punishments for businesses caught astroturfing but it does note that suspicious reviews will be removed. As a Yellow Pages business rating is based on star ratings, it’s probable that having reviews removed will result in a lower rating.

Paying for Reviews

Business owners are prohibited from paying for reviews or offering incentives for reviews. This applies to offering payment for reviews for their own profile, as well as paying or incentivizing reviewers to leave reviews for competitors. Again, the platform doesn’t get specific on any subsequent punishment, but it’s worth noting that paid, untrue reviews are a form of fraud and this is illegal in many countries.

No Friends or Family

Yellow Pages doesn’t allow business owners to request reviews from their friends or family. If a review is found to be unsubstantiated, it’ll be removed from the platform.

Angi (formerly ‘Angie’s List’) Review Guidelines

You’ll be in breach of Angi guidelines if reviews are found to be fake. This includes if they come from yourself or any other person who works for you or has an interest in the business (such as a shareholder), or is a friend or family member.

In cases of reviews contravening any of these policies, the review may be redacted, deleted, or rejected.

No Anonymous Reviews

The site says that it doesn’t accept anonymous reviews from users and that the reviewer’s name and address are visible to the business being reviewed to ensure fairness. 

No Reviewing Competitor Sites

Angi’s no anonymous reviews rule means that you can’t fraudulently review a competitor site, as the business in question will be able to identify you. This is also covered by the requirement to only review businesses you have first-hand experience of, and you surely won’t be giving custom to your competitors. 

No Incentivized Reviews 

Like most other review sites, Angi also doesn’t permit businesses to offer compensation or incentives for reviews. Reviews must be genuine and speak to the actual experience delivered by the business, so buying them isn’t permitted. 

Links are also not allowed.

It’s no secret that today’s consumers love to review everything, from hotels and gyms to doctors and lawyers. So much so that there are hundreds of niche review sites covering every imaginable industry! With the prevalence of consumer reviews and review sites today, it’s little wonder that they can have such a profound effect on local businesses.

Studies show that a high star rating and reviews describing positive experiences are the two most important factors for local consumers when reading reviews. The importance of positive reviews is clear. It’s also easy to see how businesses could be lulled into tactics that could help them to grow only their positive reviews and stamp out low-star reviews. 

What is review gating?

Review gating is when a business only encourages happy customers to leave a Google review or only shows positive reviews on its owned assets (such as product pages or other areas of a website).

By first soliciting feedback privately, a business can judge what a consumer thinks without it becoming public knowledge. This means the business can then ask only those individuals inclined to leave a good review to share their feedback online via a review platform. The result is gated reviews. 

Review Gating: What Does Google Say? 

Review gating is highlighted within Google’s Prohibited and restricted content guidelines as ‘Deceptive content’ and comes with heavy penalties. If you want to build your Google review profile, you must ask everyone for a review, rather than cherry-picking the customers you think might give you the most positive feedback.

The tricky thing with gated reviews is that it isn’t always done overtly, and many businesses could be falling foul of review gating guidelines inadvertently. 

Here’s an example:

HOTEL RECEPTIONIST: “Have you enjoyed your stay with us this weekend?”

CUSTOMER: “Yes, I have, it’s been lovely.”

HOTEL RECEPTIONIST: “Then we’d really appreciate it if you could leave us a review on Google.”

The use of “then” is key here. This otherwise inoffensive four-letter word is what would get the business into trouble if Google were lurking in the hotel lobby. This is because it sounds like the request for a review is predicated on the customer’s previous answer.

While many businesses will predominantly be focusing on email-driven review generation campaigns, this seemingly innocent example clearly illustrates the core issue with review gating in a way that highlights the margin of error.

Is Review Gating Illegal? 

The Consumer Review Fairness Act was passed by lawmakers to stamp out the practice of businesses preventing consumers from leaving honest reviews, but review gating had fallen into a grey area. This act was intended to stop businesses from issuing contracts to prevent negative reviews, or threatening legal action against reviewers for being less than complimentary. 

Cultivating exclusively positive reviews by identifying only those customers who had a positive experience with pre-screening, or by selecting only the best reviews to appear on a business website, was deemed unethical and against some platform guidelines, but wasn’t explicitly illegal. That was until the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) updated its framework and signaled its willingness to take on brands suspected of review gating.

The new FTC guidance for marketers clearly states that businesses shouldn’t only ask for reviews from those likely to give positive feedback. It also says that you shouldn’t exclude negative reviews nor display positive reviews more prominently. 

The FTC issued the fashion retailer Fashion Nova with a $4.2 million fine in January 2022 after it was found to be selectively displaying only positive reviews on its pages. The FTC says this is done to deceive the consumer, which is illegal.

What are the risks of review gating?

In the same way that a slew of bad reviews can tank a restaurant or ruin a service business, customers leaving negative comments about your business on the multitude of review sites available to them can seriously harm your reputation.

For many businesses, the perceived benefit of not having to worry about risking a bad review being shared publicly outweighs the potential penalties that come with being found out for review gating.  

One issue with this (over and above the lack of compliance with review site guidelines and the FTC framework) is that responding to negative reviews online can actually be beneficial. 

Not only do negative reviews provide you with valuable insights as to where consumers want you to improve your products or services, but responding to negative reviews also demonstrates a commitment to customer care and tells other reviewers that their feedback matters.

If you do indulge in review gating, you could be subject to a fine from the FTC, in addition to action by review platforms, such as removing your reviews or flagging up suspicious activity to viewers.

Is review gating allowed on Google? 

No, Google does not permit review gating. If your review profile is found to have gated reviews, Google may go as far as removing all reviews that you’ve accrued, not just the ones that it suspects of being gated.

So, what’s the right way for local businesses to request a review on Google?

If you’re struggling with what to say when putting together your review request emails, we’ve compiled a number of review request email templates.  

To ensure you avoid review gating, these templates don’t mention reviews. Instead, they ask for feedback, which is the best way to get an honest response. As long as you or your reputation management platform follow this first email up to request a review from everyone (yes, including those people with negative feedback, no matter how mean they sound), your business should be swimming in legitimate and justly-earned stars in no time.

Every business wants to increase the number of online reviews that they have. Whether the goal is to have more reviews than the competition, to repair your overall rating or simply to rank in or higher in the map pack, every business is looking into ways to get reviews. But you need to be smart about your strategy or you may find yourself renting reviews.

If Google catches you running an illegal review scheme, and they will, they will delete all of your reviews connected to the review scheme. The FTC also regulates online reviews. Google follows suit and has made review contests a violation of their Terms of Service. Before you stop reading this and say “I won’t get caught,” you need to know that Google receives multiple reports of review schemes every day. Your business could be next.

As a Google Business Profile Gold Product Expert (formerly the Top Contributor program), I answer business owner’s questions and advise individuals on how to navigate Google Business Profile issues. On a daily basis, I watch as business after business gets reported for ill-gotten reviews. I’ve seen reports made by marketing professionals, competitors, disgruntled employees, and upset customers.

There is more potential to get caught than there is to hide forever. If you’re like me, and spy on your competition to see what they’re up to, the chances are that one of your many competitors or their marketing company is spying on or monitoring your business.

Review Schemes to Avoid

Review Contests

Review contests are very popular and extremely illegal. The premise of this scheme is to enter the reviewer into a giveaway once they leave a review. I see this a lot with dentists and orthodontists. One dentist ran their review contest twice and both times they were reported to Google.

It doesn’t matter if you say any reviewer can qualify to enter (rather than just positive reviews), the fact that you are offering an incentive for the review violates Google’s TOS and so they will negate the contest.

The dentist in question more than likely received an email from Google advising them to stop the practice, which says “Please note that it is against Google Business Profile policies to offer or accept money, products, or services to write reviews for a business or to write negative reviews about a competitor.”

I would bet that this email was in the process of being sent as the dentist set up the second review contest.

Discounted or Free Services

You cannot offer a reviewer any discount on services or products in exchange for reviews. One business I’m aware of offered all of their customers a 10% savings on their next purchase for leaving a review, so Google went and deleted two years’ worth of reviews.

I’ve also seen a thread where a business thanked everyone with a free drink after leaving a review. Google deleted over 400 reviews. Those 400 individuals still kept their free drink after their reviews were deleted by Google.

Review Swaps

I see review swaps the most in the legal niche. A review swap is basically where “you review me” and “I’ll review you”. I see it a lot when looking at a GBP listings for lawyers. One reviewer, who is also a lawyer, left reviews for several lawyers in different states.

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.”

Review swaps:

a) don’t reflect a genuine experience

b) are posted to manipulate the ratings

When Google sees reports of these types of reviews, they delete them.

Asking Your Friends and Family for Reviews

This is the worst advice out there and it needs to be stopped. As I stated in ‘review swaps’ above, your friends and family reviews are posted to manipulate your ratings.

I see this a lot: a GBP listing has 7 reviews, all posted 8 months ago, and new reviews ever get posted. Potential customers want to see fresh and relevant reviews. Customers want to know how the business currently is and not how they were a year ago.

In their most recent Local Consumer Review Survey, BrightLocal found that 77% of consumers think that online reviews older than 3 months aren’t relevant.

Review gating

Review gating is when a customer fills out a survey and, if they score high enough, they are asked to post a review online, but if the customer scores the business too low, they are asked to provide private feedback only. Review gating is not a new policy, but Google has just reiterated their stance on this practice.

When 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. They keep your money while all of your reviews are deleted and gone forever.

Remember that you can’t 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, and also to make your review profile more believable. (100+ 5-star reviews? Something’s up there.).

Receiving reviews is like going to the doctor for a check-up. The doctor will tell you all the positives and the areas you need to improve upon. If your doctor doesn’t inform you that you need to lower your cholesterol, they are doing you a disservice. You also can’t completely stop an upset customer from sharing their feedback. If they are upset enough, they might report you to Google.

What to Do Instead

All of the above review schemes simply don’t work long-term. While they may have quick results, they merely open up your business to a possible fine from the FTC and review deletion from Google.

Google will and does email businesses involved in illegal review schemes. This is not the attention you want from Google. If you give away a television or an iPad to solicit reviews and Google deletes all of your reviews, you’ll realize you just rented reviews for a short time. It would have been cheaper to sign up for BrightLocal’s new Reputation Manager tool.

If an iPad costs $329 USD and BrightLocal’s reputation tool costs $8 USD, a business could safely request reviews for 41 months. That is almost 2 years’ worth of legitimate Google Business Profile reviews that will remain and won’t be deleted by Google.

When it comes to reviews, I tell all new brick and mortar businesses that they should be getting 5 to 10 new reviews per month. This really isn’t that hard if you train your staff to listen to your customers. If a customer says how great the service is, ask them to share that feedback online and leave your business a Google review.

If a business gets 10 customers a day, that’s 50 to 70 people per week. The odds are in your favor to get at least one of those customers to leave you a review online. It’s the law of averages and it will work out in your favor. You and your staff just need to ask.

You can run a contest among your employees to see who can get the most reviews. This can also get your employees to start focusing more on their customer service skills and the level of service they provide. After all, how are you going to get a review if you don’t ask for it?

Don’t Be Afraid of Negative Reviews

Reviews are about the customer experience. They should never be looked at as “I need X amount of reviews to rank higher, have more reviews than my competitor or to repair my reputation”. That’s the incorrect thinking businesses have when it comes to reviews and that thinking is a recipe for disaster.

If you have a “5 stars or bust” mentality, then when your business gets that one negative review (and it will) it will really upset you. I often see business owners get very distraught over one negative review. They plead their case on the Google Business Profile forum on how:

• it’s not fair
• we have nothing but 5-star reviews
• it’s not a customer
• we have no record of the person
• it has to be a competitor

…and so they respond in a rude and unprofessional manner to the review publicly.

A negative review is an opportunity to plead your case and get the customer to contact you to resolve the complaint. Google notifies the reviewer of your reply too.

The goal of your reply is to persuade the user to contact you and work out a resolution. As consumers are reading more reviews, they are also reading the replies to reviews.  If you sound angry in your reply, it will do more harm than good, and that reviewer will not contact you to resolve the issue.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that your business needs customers to stay in business. If you’re not monitoring your reviews and replying in a polite and professional manner, your potential customers will go elsewhere.

You need to take a deep and serious look at your reviews and address any areas customers are not happy with. One business I have been monitoring for two years officially closed in October 2018. They never addressed the underlying causes of their negative reviews. Instead, they focused on a review scheme to combat the negative reviews. It didn’t work the restaurant wasn’t saved.

Review schemes will not work for your business either. To quote my favorite line from the movie Shawshank Redemption,

“get busy living, or get busy dying.”

Only you can save your business. Will you?