Buying Google reviews means paying for reviews on your Business Profile, in money or anything else. Google’s content policy removes “Reviews or ratings that have been paid for, directly or in kind.” Since 6 April 2025 the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 has banned fake reviews in the UK, and commissioning them.
So you can’t buy Google reviews without breaking Google’s rules and risking the law. This guide covers what counts, what Google and the regulator can do, and how to get real reviews instead.
Do this today
- Turn down anyone offering to sell you reviews or boost your star rating.
- Stop any discount, freebie or cash you give in return for a review.
- Don’t ask staff or family to review your business.
- Copy your review link from your Business Profile.
- Send it to every customer when the job’s done, happy or not.
What counts as a fake or incentivised review
A fake review is one that “purports to be, but is not, based on a person’s genuine experience”. That’s the legal definition in the Act. A review hides an incentive when someone was commissioned to write it and that fact isn’t made clear.
Commissioning isn’t only cash. The CMA’s fake reviews guidance lists money, commission, discounts, vouchers and freebies. It counts a trader asking a member of staff to write a review too.
The guidance gives examples of commissioning banned reviews. Three apply to a trade:
- a free or discounted job for an existing customer in return for a five-star review
- a refund or gift card to a customer who changes a bad review
- buying reviews written by software to look like real customers
A bad review isn’t fake just because you disagree with it. The CMA says it’s genuine as long as it reflects the reviewer’s genuine experience.
What Google does about bought reviews
Google’s policy is short: “Fake engagement is not allowed and will be removed.” It bans these on Google Maps:
- Paid reviews. Paid for in money or in kind.
- Rewards. Payment, discounts or free goods or services for a review, or for changing or removing a bad one.
- One person, many accounts. Reviews posted from several accounts by one person or at their request.
- Conflicts of interest. Google names “current or former employment” and family relationships.
- Asking only happy customers. Businesses can’t “selectively solicit positive reviews from customers”.
Removal isn’t the only step. Google’s Business Profile restrictions page says it “might place restrictions” on a profile that breaks the fake engagement policy, such as pausing new reviews, unpublishing existing ones or showing a warning. Google says it emails the owner before it applies a restriction. The business can appeal, and Google then re-reviews the profile.
For behaviour that harms its users, Google’s policy says action ranges “from suspending the account privileges to account termination”.
The UK regulator has a say in this too. In January 2025 the CMA announced Google’s undertakings on fake reviews. Under them, UK businesses found boosting their star rating with fake reviews have their review function deactivated, so they can’t receive any new reviews. The CMA says firms that keep doing it will have all their reviews deleted for 6 months or more.
If reviews have gone from your profile and you don’t know why, here’s why your Google reviews have disappeared.
What UK law says about fake reviews
Schedule 20 of the Act lists practices that are always unfair. Paragraph 13 covers reviews and came into force on 6 April 2025. It bans submitting, or commissioning another person to submit or write, a fake review or one that conceals it was incentivised.
The CMA’s guidance says the ban covers fake bad reviews as well as fake good ones. The CMA’s short guide for businesses says the CMA and the courts can now fine traders who don’t comply up to 10% of their worldwide turnover. It says a business may have to compensate affected consumers too.
For the CMA’s current review cases, see the CMA fake reviews crackdown: what it means for trades.
Google’s rules are stricter than the law
UK law doesn’t ban every reward for a review. The CMA’s guidance says a trader can reward a reviewer if readers are told the review was incentivised and it still reflects a genuine experience.
That doesn’t work on Google. Google bans incentives for reviews, and its policy has no disclosure exception. The CMA guidance says that where a site doesn’t allow incentivised reviews, submitting one “is likely to be misleading”.
Prize draws sit in the same gap. The CMA says a prize draw entry “is unlikely to amount to commissioning” under the law. Google’s policy doesn’t name prize draws. It bans incentives “such as” payment, discounts and free goods or services.
In our view a trade should give nothing in return for a Google review. No discount on the next job. No free service. No prize draw. The risk isn’t worth one review.
The risk to a trade business
Your reviews sit on the same Business Profile that puts you on Google Maps. In our view that’s the real risk: the Google steps above land on your profile, not on whoever sold you the reviews.
The seller is in the law’s sights too. Paragraph 13 bans offering services to traders that do or help with any of the banned review practices. One of the CMA’s own examples is an SEO service that promises to improve a trader’s rating and uses fake reviews to do it.
In our view any offer of guaranteed five-star reviews for a fee should end the conversation. If they can’t show you how real customers would write them, real customers won’t.
The honest way to get more reviews
Google allows businesses to ask for genuine reviews. The condition is no incentives and no attempt to steer the rating or the wording. The CMA agrees that simply emailing customers to ask if they’d like to leave a review isn’t banned.
For a trade the routine is short:
- Get your review link. Can’t sign in? Use our free Google review link and QR code generator.
- Text it to every customer the day the job’s finished.
- Don’t pressure them to review you while you’re on site, or ask them to include anything specific. Google’s policy rules out both.
- Reply to the reviews that come in, good and bad.
The full routine, with wording for each trade, is in how to get Google reviews as a tradesman. If you put reviews on your own site, don’t remove the bad ones and keep the good ones up. The Act counts that as publishing reviews in a misleading way. Here’s how to show Google reviews on your website.
Questions about buying Google reviews
Can you buy Google reviews?
You can’t buy Google reviews without breaking Google’s rules. Google removes paid reviews when it finds them, and UK law has banned commissioning fake reviews since 6 April 2025.
Is buying Google reviews illegal in the UK?
Yes. Buying fake Google reviews is a banned practice under Schedule 20 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. Commissioning a review that conceals it was incentivised is banned too.
Can I give a discount for a Google review?
No. You can’t give a discount for a Google review, whether the review is good or bad. Google bans discounts for changing or removing a bad review as well.
Can my staff or family leave a Google review?
No. Google removes reviews based on a conflict of interest, and its policy says a conflict of interest “may include current or former employment”. It lists family relationships as another example. So don’t ask staff or family to review you.
Can Google tell if reviews are bought?
Google told the CMA it will take “rigorous steps to detect and remove fake reviews”. That commitment is part of the undertakings the CMA announced in January 2025.
What if a competitor posts fake reviews about me?
A competitor posting fake reviews about you breaks Google’s policy, which bans posting on a competitor’s listing to damage its reputation. Here’s how to remove a Google review or fake review.
Can you help me get real reviews?
We can help with your Google Business Profile and getting reviews from real customers as part of our local SEO for trades. We only help you ask real customers. We never buy reviews.