Review policy
Google wants you to ask for reviews. Yelp forbids it.
The habit that builds a Google profile quietly damages a Yelp page. Both rules are published by the platforms themselves, both are enforced automatically, and the single message that asks for a review on either is the most common way a business breaks one of them.
Can I ask customers for reviews on Google and on Yelp?
On Google, yes. Google's own guidance tells businesses to remind customers using a review link or QR code, and its Maps content policy states plainly that merchants may solicit or encourage content that represents a genuine experience, as long as they offer no incentive and do not try to influence the rating or the contents of the review.
On Yelp, no. Yelp's Content Guidelines say that businesses should never ask customers to write reviews, and its support article extends that to mailing list subscribers, friends and family. Reviews Yelp's software believes were prompted are moved out of the recommended section, where they stop counting toward the visible rating.
So one review request sent to a customer naming both platforms is compliant on one and a breach on the other. The workable process asks for Google by name, never mentions Yelp in the ask, and leaves Yelp to passive signals.
Two platforms, two opposite rules, one habit
Nearly every business that runs into trouble here is doing something reasonable. They built a review request that works on Google, then applied it everywhere, because applying a working process everywhere is what a competent operator does.
Google's position is that reviews should be encouraged and its help pages tell you how. Yelp's position is that reviews should be spontaneous, and its software is built to detect and demote the ones that look prompted. Neither is hidden. They are simply opposite, and no platform tells you about the other one's rules.
The asymmetry in the consequence matters more than the rules themselves. A breach on Google tends to remove reviews and can restrict the profile. A breach on Yelp is quieter: the reviews still exist, they are just moved somewhere that does not count, so a business that asked enthusiastically can end up displaying a lower rating than one that never asked at all.
That quietness is why this persists. Nobody gets an email telling them their Yelp requests were filtered. The page simply underperforms, and the business concludes it needs to ask harder.
What each platform actually permits
Every row is drawn from the platform's own current policy pages, read in full on 18 September 2026. The links are in the sources at the foot of this page.
Open the full comparison: What each platform actually permitsHide the full comparison: What each platform actually permits
| Item | Yelp | |
|---|---|---|
| Asking a customer for a review | Permitted and encouraged, using the review link or QR code from your profile | Prohibited. Content Guidelines: businesses should never ask customers to write reviews |
| Asking friends, family or a mailing list | A review has to reflect a genuine experience, and conflict of interest reviews are rating manipulation | Explicitly prohibited, and named: customers, mailing list subscribers, friends, family |
| Following a feedback survey with a review request | Permitted if you ask everyone, prohibited if you route by how they answered | Explicitly prohibited, even when everyone is asked |
| Incentives of any kind | Prohibited outright, including for revising or removing a negative review | Prohibited outright, including incentives to remove a review |
| Staff review targets or competitions | Prohibited. Merchants must not ask staff to solicit a certain number of reviews | Prohibited. Your staff should never compete to collect reviews |
| Asking for specific content or a named employee | Prohibited. Merchants must not request that specific content be included, including content identifying a staff member | Prohibited, since the ask itself is prohibited |
| Asking on the premises | Must not require or pressure a customer to leave a review while on the premises | Prohibited, since the ask itself is prohibited |
| Employee, family or contractor reviews | Rating manipulation. Conflict of interest includes employment, contracts and family | Conflict of interest under the Content Guidelines |
| Replying to reviews | Encouraged, to positive and negative alike | Encouraged, to positive and negative alike |
| What happens when you breach it | Reviews removed, a banner over the page, posting restrictions, profile suspension | Reviews moved to not recommended, and a Consumer Alert for compensated activity |
Read down the Google column and a pattern appears that surprises most people: Google permits asking and prohibits almost everything about how businesses usually do it. Five of the ten rows are things a well meaning owner does without realising there is a rule.
The four Google rules that catch honest businesses
These sit in the Maps user generated content policy rather than in the friendly help article, which is why almost nobody has read them. Each one is common practice somewhere.
Selective solicitation
Google does not allow merchants to discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or to selectively solicit positive reviews from customers. A survey that forwards only the happy respondents to your review link is the textbook version, and so is a front desk that only asks the customers who looked pleased.
- Ask everyone or ask nobody
- A gate is a policy breach before it is anything else
Pressure on the premises
When soliciting reviews, merchants should not require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises. A tablet at the counter that a customer is walked through before they can leave is the arrangement this addresses.
- Hand over a link or a QR code, then let them go
- The review should be written somewhere else
Requesting specific content
Merchants should not request that specific content be included, including content that identifies a staff member. Asking a customer to mention the technician by name is extremely common in home services and clinics, and it is named in the policy.
- No suggested wording
- No please mention your hygienist
- No keyword requests
Staff quotas
Merchants requesting that staff solicit a certain number of reviews is listed in the same clause. A team leaderboard with a monthly review target is a policy problem, whatever the intention behind it.
- No per person targets
- No competitions
- Measure the rate, not the person
The permission is explicit, which is worth knowing
Google's policy states the permission as plainly as the prohibitions. Merchants may solicit or encourage the posting of content that does represent a genuine experience, without offering incentives to do so and without attempting to influence the rating or the contents of the review.
The mechanism Google provides is a short review link and a QR code, generated from the profile under Read Reviews and then Get more reviews. Google's own page suggests putting it on receipts, in thank you emails, at the end of a chat interaction, and printed and displayed in store. One practical note from that page: the QR code can currently only be generated in a computer browser rather than on a phone.
So the compliant Google ask is short and unremarkable. Every customer, the same moment every time, a link that opens the review box in one tap, no suggestion about what to write and nothing offered in return. That is the whole of it, and it is cheaper than every non compliant alternative.
Why Yelp's filter punishes the thing Google rewards
Yelp's Content Guidelines put the rule under conflicts of interest, in one sentence: businesses should never ask customers to write reviews. Its support article extends it, naming customers, mailing list subscribers, friends and family, adding that staff should never compete to collect reviews, and closing a loophole most people would have used, which is asking for a review after collecting feedback somewhere else such as a survey or a contact form.
Yelp gives two reasons and both are worth understanding, because they explain why the rule is not going to soften. The first is fairness: it does not want ratings to reflect which business had the time and resources to ask the most people. The second is bias: businesses overwhelmingly ask the customers they expect to be happy, which inflates the result.
Read the full breakdown: Why Yelp's filter punishes the thing Google rewardsHide the full breakdown: Why Yelp's filter punishes the thing Google rewards
Enforcement is automatic. Yelp describes its recommendation software as entirely automated, applying uniform criteria, looking at hundreds of factors, and filtering out reviews that may be solicited, that come from an unfairly biased source such as an owner or employee, or that are written by users it does not know enough about. Reviews it does not recommend stay visible in a separate section and stop counting toward the star rating.
For incentives specifically there is a second layer. Yelp's Consumer Alerts programme puts a Compensated Activity Alert over the reviews on a business page when it has evidence that someone offered cash or another incentive in exchange for a review. That is a public warning on your own page, which is a different order of consequence from a filtered review.
Federal law and platform policy are not the same test
This is the distinction that most review advice collapses, and getting it right changes what you do.
The FTC's Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule, effective 21 October 2024, bans fake reviews, insider reviews without disclosure, and certain kinds of review suppression, and courts can impose civil penalties for knowing violations. But on the two questions businesses actually ask, the FTC is looser than the platforms. On incentives, the FTC's own questions and answers state that the rule does not prohibit giving incentives for reviews as long as there is no express or implied requirement that the review express a particular sentiment, while noting that failing to disclose an incentive may violate the FTC Act. On asking only your happy customers, the FTC says the rule contains no specific prohibition, though the practice could violate the FTC Act.
Read the full breakdown: Federal law and platform policy are not the same testHide the full breakdown: Federal law and platform policy are not the same test
Google bans both outright. Yelp bans the ask itself. So a business can construct a review programme that is defensible under the federal rule and still lose its reviews, collect a public warning, or have its profile suspended.
The practical rule that follows is simple: comply with the stricter of the two, which is always the platform. Nothing of value changes hands in either direction for a review, and nobody is filtered out of the ask. Do that and the federal question stops arising.
One review process that is correct on both platforms
This is the whole design. It is deliberately boring, it takes about an hour to set up, and every element of it exists because one of the two platforms would object to the alternative.
Name Google, and only Google, in the ask
Get the short review link and the QR code from your Business Profile and use them everywhere the ask appears. The single most common breach is a message that says leave us a review on Google or Yelp, which is compliant on the first and a breach on the second.
- One platform named per message
- Never link to Yelp from a review request
- Never send a review request after a feedback survey, because Yelp prohibits that route specifically
Ask every customer, at the same moment every time
Pick one moment in your process, write it into the procedure, and stop leaving it to judgement. Job signed off, checkout, handover, whichever fits. Asking everybody is what keeps you clear of Google's selective solicitation rule, and it is also what makes the average honest.
- No filtering by how happy somebody seemed
- No survey gate in front of the link
- One reminder a few days later, then stop
Hand over the link, do not stand over it
Give the customer the link or the code and let them leave. Google's rule is that a merchant must not require or pressure a customer to leave a review while on the premises, which is exactly what a counter tablet workflow does even when nobody intends any pressure.
See the remaining steps: One review process that is correct on both platformsHide the remaining steps: One review process that is correct on both platforms
Never suggest what to write
No sample wording, no keywords, and above all no asking the customer to mention a staff member by name. Google names that last one in the policy. It is also the tell that most obviously marks a review as prompted, which is precisely what Yelp's filter is looking for.
Offer nothing, in either direction
No discount, no draw, no free upgrade, no coffee on the house, and nothing in exchange for changing or removing a negative review. Both platforms prohibit this outright and Yelp will put a public alert on your page for it. The federal rule is looser here, which is not a reason to use the room it leaves.
Let Yelp arrive on its own, and give it somewhere to land
You cannot ask, so the work is making the page worth finding and worth reading when somebody gets there under their own steam. That is passive presence rather than passivity: there is real work to do, it just does not involve asking.
- Claim and complete the free page with real photographs
- Fill in the amenities, which act as search filters rather than decoration
- Display the Find us on Yelp badge and link to the page from your site
- Watch the Yelp inbox, since response rate and speed are shown publicly
Reply to everything, on both
Replies are the one activity both platforms encourage without qualification, and they are read by the next customer rather than by the reviewer. Thank the positive ones specifically enough to show you remember the job. Answer the critical ones calmly, with a route to resolution and no argument.
Brief whoever actually does the asking
The process lives or dies on the front desk, the technician and whoever writes the follow up template. Tell them the rule and the reason, because a rule without a reason gets improvised around the first time somebody is busy.
- No staff review targets or leaderboards, which both platforms prohibit
- No employee, family or contractor reviews, which both treat as a conflict of interest
- No AI written reviews, which Yelp's guidelines ban outright
Notice what is not on this list: any tool, any subscription and any clever workaround. Every element is a decision about process, and the compliant version is the cheap version in every single case.
The consequences, platform by platform
Worth knowing in detail, because the two platforms fail in completely different ways and only one of them tells you.
- Google, quietly: reviews that breach the content policy are removed, and Google may hide a business's reviews for a period.
- Google, visibly: a banner can appear on the business page telling people that suspicious reviews were removed, and posting may be restricted on the place for a period of time.
- Google, at account level: a Business Profile can be suspended or disabled, with reinstatement running through an appeals tool that asks for business registration, a licence, tax certificates or utility bills as evidence.
- Google, spreading: violations that occur on either a Business Profile or the linked Maps profile can restrict feature access across both, because they sit under the same Google Account.
- Yelp, quietly: reviews the automated software believes were solicited move to the not recommended section, where they remain visible but stop counting toward the star rating. Nobody tells you this has happened.
- Yelp, visibly: a Compensated Activity Alert appears over the reviews on the business page where Yelp has evidence that cash or another incentive was offered, with the evidence linked where possible.
- Everywhere: a business that has been buying or steering reviews no longer knows which of its real problems the reviews were hiding, which is the cost nobody puts in the risk assessment.
The Google failures are recoverable and documented. The Yelp failure is the one to worry about, because a business can run a prohibited process for two years, never be told, and conclude that Yelp simply does not work for its category.
Common tactics, and which platform each one breaks
Run down this list against what your business does today. Most owners find at least one.
Open the full comparison: Common tactics, and which platform each one breaksHide the full comparison: Common tactics, and which platform each one breaks
| What a lot of businesses do | Yelp | |
|---|---|---|
| Send a review link by text after every job | Allowed | Not if it names or links to Yelp |
| One message naming Google and Yelp together | Allowed | Breach |
| Survey first, then forward the happy ones | Breach | Breach |
| Ask the customer to mention their technician by name | Breach | Breach |
| Tablet at the counter, walked through before they leave | Breach | Breach |
| A monthly review target for the team | Breach | Breach |
| Prize draw or discount for reviewers | Breach | Breach, and a public alert |
| Paying a customer to take a review down | Breach | Breach, and a public alert |
| Staff and family reviews without disclosure | Breach | Breach |
| A window sticker and a link to your Yelp page | Allowed | Allowed |
| Replying to every review on both platforms | Encouraged | Encouraged |
The two allowed rows near the bottom are the entire Yelp strategy, and they are genuinely enough. A complete page with real photographs, filled in amenities, a watched inbox and a link from your website will accumulate reviews at whatever rate your service earns, which is the rate Yelp is trying to measure.
If you are a clinic, there is a third rule on top of both
A healthcare practice replying in public to a review has a confidentiality problem that a plumber does not. Confirming that somebody was a patient, or referring to their treatment, discloses protected information even when the reviewer disclosed it first and even when you are correcting something untrue.
The workable reply acknowledges the feedback, states a general commitment to the standard of care, and moves the specifics to a private channel, without confirming or denying that the person was ever seen. That is more restrained than feels natural when a review is unfair, and it is the version that does not create a second problem on top of the first.
Everything else on this page still applies unchanged. The review request rules are the same for a clinic as for anyone else, and the temptation to ask only the patients who seemed pleased is stronger, which makes the selective solicitation rule more relevant rather than less.
Audit your own review process against both policies
Nine checks. Any no is worth fixing this week, because every one of them is a process change rather than a purchase.
- Does every review request name exactly one platform, and is that platform Google?
- Does anything you send link to Yelp and ask for a review in the same message?
- Does anybody get asked for a review after answering a feedback survey or a contact form?
- Is there a survey, a rating question or any other step between the customer and the review box?
- Does anybody on the team have a review target, a quota or a leaderboard position?
See the full checklist: Audit your own review process against both policiesHide the full checklist: Audit your own review process against both policies
- Does any template, script or sign suggest what a customer should write, or name a staff member to mention?
- Is anything of value offered for leaving, changing or removing a review, however small and however informal?
- Is the ask happening on the premises in a way a customer could experience as pressure?
- Is your Yelp page claimed, complete, photographed, amenity tagged and monitored, so that the reviews you cannot ask for have somewhere to land?
Write down the answers and the date. Platform policies change, and a record of what you decided and why is the difference between fixing a breach and rediscovering it every eighteen months.
We can set this up so it runs without anybody remembering
Review work is part of our local SEO and reputation programme: the link, the timing, the template, the Yelp page and the brief for whoever does the asking. Or take this page and do it yourself, which is a perfectly good outcome.
Straight answers.
Can I really not ask for a Yelp review, even once, even politely?
That is Yelp's stated position. Its Content Guidelines say businesses should never ask customers to write reviews, and the support article extends it to mailing list subscribers, friends and family, and separately prohibits asking for a review after you have collected feedback somewhere else such as a survey or a contact form.
Enforcement is not a judgement about politeness. Yelp's recommendation software is automated and looks for reviews that appear prompted, so a courteous request and a pushy one fail the same way. The review still appears, in the not recommended section, where it no longer counts toward your rating.
What is the single most common mistake?
One message that asks for a review and names both platforms, or links to both. It is the natural thing to build, it is compliant on Google, and it is a direct breach of Yelp's policy.
The fix costs nothing. Name Google in the ask, leave Yelp out of it entirely, and let the Yelp page earn reviews from the people who go looking for it.
Can I offer a discount or run a prize draw for reviewers?
No, on both platforms. Google's Maps content policy prohibits offering incentives such as payment, discounts or free goods and services in exchange for posting a review, or for revising or removing a negative one. Yelp prohibits the same and its Consumer Alerts programme puts a public warning over the reviews on a business page where it has evidence of compensated activity.
The federal position is looser, which is worth knowing and not worth using. The FTC's own questions and answers state that its rule does not prohibit incentives as long as there is no express or implied requirement that the review express a particular sentiment, while noting that failing to disclose an incentive may violate the FTC Act. The platform rule is the stricter one and it is the one that will actually cost you something.
Is it really against the rules to ask a customer to mention their technician by name?
Yes, on Google, and it is named explicitly. The policy says that when soliciting reviews, merchants should not request that specific content be included, and gives requesting reviews that identify a staff member as an example.
It is also self defeating. A run of reviews that all name a different employee in the same phrasing is one of the clearest patterns a filter can detect, on any platform. If you want to recognise individual staff, do it from the reviews you receive rather than by asking for them.
What about review gating, where only happy customers see the review link?
Google prohibits it directly. Its policy says merchants may not discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers, so a gate is a policy problem before it is anything else. Yelp prohibits the route as well, since it bans asking for a review after collecting feedback elsewhere.
The FTC is more nuanced than it is usually reported to be. Its questions and answers say the rule does not contain a specific prohibition on asking only satisfied customers, but that the practice could violate the FTC Act. So the clean reason not to gate is the platform rule, not the federal one.
How can I tell whether my Yelp reviews are being filtered?
Look at the bottom of your Yelp page for the link to reviews that are not currently recommended, and compare that count with the reviews shown above it. A business with a large not recommended pile relative to its visible reviews is usually one that has been asking.
There is no notification and no appeal in the ordinary sense, because the software is automated and applies uniform criteria. The route back is to stop asking and let genuine reviews accumulate, which is slower than most owners want to hear and is the only thing that works.
Does replying to reviews break any rule?
No. Both platforms encourage it, and it is the one review activity with no downside on either. Google's guidance asks for replies that are professional, short, specific rather than identical, and not used to push offers or promotions at people who are already customers.
Two things to avoid in a reply. Never share a reviewer's private information or respond to a personal attack in kind. And if you are a healthcare practice, do not confirm in public that somebody was a patient: acknowledge the feedback, keep the detail out of it, and move the specifics to a private channel.
Should I just ignore Yelp and concentrate on Google?
Google is where most local review reading happens, so it is the priority. But Yelp ranks in its own right for branded and category searches, it is one of the sources other systems read when they are assembling a picture of a business, and an unclaimed or neglected page is visible to anybody checking whether you are legitimate.
The realistic position is that Yelp needs maintenance rather than campaigning. Claim it, complete it properly, tag the amenities, watch the inbox, and let the reviews arrive at the rate your service earns. That is a couple of hours once and a few minutes a month, which is a fair price for a page you do not control appearing next to your name.
Where this comes from.
Primary documentation and published research behind the guidance on this page.
- Google: Maps user generated content policy, prohibited and restricted content (opens in a new tab)The primary text. Fake Engagement and Rating Manipulation are where the review rules actually live.
- Google Business Profile Help: Tips to get more reviews (opens in a new tab)
- Google Business Profile Help: create a Google link or QR code to request reviews (opens in a new tab)The current mechanism, and the page Google puts its incentives warning on.
- Google: Consumer Alerts on Maps (opens in a new tab)Google's own enforcement banner, posting restrictions and temporary review hiding.
- Google: feature access restrictions for policy violations (opens in a new tab)A violation on a Business Profile or a Maps profile can restrict both, since they share a Google Account.
- Yelp: Content Guidelines (opens in a new tab)Under conflicts of interest: businesses should never ask customers to write reviews. Also bans AI written reviews.
- Yelp for Business Support: Don't Ask for Reviews (opens in a new tab)The operative sentence: don't ask anyone to review your business, be it customers, mailing list subscribers, friends or family.
- Yelp for Business Support: what is Yelp's recommendation software (opens in a new tab)Yelp's own description of the filter that moves solicited reviews out of the visible rating.
- Yelp Trust and Safety: Consumer Alerts (opens in a new tab)What a Compensated Activity Alert is and when Yelp puts one over a business page's reviews.
- FTC: Final rule banning fake reviews and testimonials (opens in a new tab)
- FTC: the Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule, questions and answers (opens in a new tab)The FTC's own answers on incentives, removals and responding to a negative review.
Talk to the team
A short call, a look at how the business currently shows up, and a straight answer on what we would do first.