A Google review is the feedback a person publishes on a business’s Google Business Profile. It includes a rating from 1 to 5 stars, often some text, sometimes photos, and it shows under the author’s Google account name. Anyone can read it in Google Search and on Google Maps.
Who can leave a review
Anyone signed in to a Google account can review a business. The owner cannot delete a review themselves: they can reply publicly, or flag it to Google if it breaks the rules (off-topic, offensive, fake, conflict of interest).
What Google forbids
Google’s content policy forbids, among other things, reviews written by the owner, staff or relatives, paid reviews, reviews posted from several accounts and reviews left on a competitor’s profile to harm it. In many countries fake reviews are also illegal: the US FTC rule on consumer reviews and the UK rules on fake reviews both target them.
A concrete example
A customer leaves a beauty salon, opens Google Maps, taps “Write a review”, gives 5 stars and writes: “Very gentle facial, Camille took time to explain.” The review appears on the profile, the average rating is recalculated, and the owner can reply to say thank you.
Common mistakes
- never asking and waiting for reviews to come: it is mostly unhappy customers who write unprompted;
- only replying to negative reviews;
- asking friends to “give 5 stars”: it breaks the rules and often the law.
To get reviews regularly, follow the guide to getting more Google reviews.
Go further
Related terms
Average rating (Google stars)
The average rating is the mean of the stars (1 to 5) customers leave on a business’s Google profile, shown with one decimal next to the total number of reviews.
Review response
A review response is the public message a business owner posts under a customer’s review, on their Google profile or another platform, to thank, explain or offer a solution.
Google review link
A Google review link is a web address that opens the “Write a review” form of a business’s profile directly, so customers don’t have to search for the profile themselves.