How to Get More Google Reviews in the UK, Legally

More Google reviews, arriving steadily, from real customers, is the most reliable way to improve both your local ranking and the number of people who choose you once they see it. It is also the area where UK businesses are most often sold something illegal. This article covers what works, what the rules are since April 2025, and a process you can start this week.

The rules, briefly

Google: no fake reviews, no reviews from owners or staff, no incentives for reviews, no asking only happy customers, no swaps. Breaches remove the reviews and can suspend the profile.

UK law: the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 took effect for consumer protection on 6 April 2025. Commissioning fake reviews, submitting them, publishing them without reasonable checks, and hiding that a review was incentivised are all banned practices. The CMA can fine a business up to 10% of global turnover without going to court. The businesses buying "review packages" are the ones exposed.

Everything below is compliant with both.

What actually produces reviews

1. A direct link

In your Business Profile dashboard, "Ask for reviews" generates a short link that opens the five-star box directly. Customers should never have to search for you. Turn the link into a QR code (any free generator; test it).

2. The right moment

People leave reviews when the good feeling is fresh: the job just finished, the meal just paid for, the treatment just done. The same request three days later by email converts at a fraction of the rate. Ask in person first; follow up by message second.

3. A specific, human ask

"If you've got a minute, a Google review really helps a small business like ours — this code takes you straight there." Not "please rate us five stars", which is gating in spirit and reads as needy.

4. Everywhere the customer already looks

• QR code on receipts, invoices and appointment cards
• Link in the "job complete" or "thanks for your order" email and SMS
• Small sign at the till or reception
• Sticker on the van or the shop door
• Email signature

5. Staff who are part of it

Whoever finishes the job asks. Give them the one-line script and show them the count going up each week. Do not tie it to bonuses per review — that edges into incentive territory and produces pushy asks.

6. Respond to every review

Customers are more likely to leave a review when they can see the business reads them. Responses also give the next reader confidence.

7. Track it

Reviews per month, against a target set by looking at the businesses in the pack for your main search. If you slip below the third-placed profile's rate, the process has lapsed somewhere.

What does not work (or gets you removed)

• Buying reviews. Google's filters catch account patterns, not just wording. The profile can be suspended and the CMA can fine you.
• Review gating. Sending happy customers to Google and unhappy ones to a private form. Banned by Google; the "reasonable steps" language in the DMCC Act cuts against it too.
• Incentives. "10% off your next visit for a review." Banned unless disclosed on the review and the platform allows it; Google does not.
• Staff and family. Filtered, and a conflict of interest under policy.
• Review kiosks on your own Wi-Fi. Dozens of reviews from one IP look exactly like what they are.
• Bursts. Forty reviews in a week after two years of none triggers filtering. Steady beats sudden.

Why reviews sometimes vanish

Google removes reviews it thinks are inauthentic, and it is not always right. Reviews from brand-new accounts, from accounts that only ever review one business, from the same device as the business, or that arrive in a cluster are the usual casualties. There is no appeal for a removed genuine review. The defence is a natural pattern from real customers over time.

A two-week rollout

1. Generate the link and QR code. Print a counter sign and add the code to invoices and email templates.
2. Respond to every existing review.
3. Brief staff with the script. Agree who asks and when.
4. Set the target from competitor data.
5. Review the count every Friday. Adjust where the ask is being missed.

That is the whole system. It works because it is boring and consistent. If you want it set up and run for you — including the responses and flagging the reviews that break policy — that is our review management service.

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