Reviews that actually help local rankings

It is nine o'clock on a Saturday and a table of six is putting their coats on. One of them says it was the best meal they have had in months. They mean it. You watch them walk off towards the river, and you know that not one of them will mention it online unless somebody asks.

That is the problem with reviews. Happy customers are glad to help and almost never think of it. This post covers how to ask, the rules you need to stay inside, and what to do when a review is unfair.

Why reviews matter

Google says that review count and review score count towards where you appear in local results. More important for most of us, people read them before they ring or book. Someone choosing a plumber, a dentist or a dinner reads three or four reviews, looks at the most recent ones, and decides. A profile with a steady trickle of recent reviews looks like a business that is open, busy and looked after.

Asking properly

Make it easy, and make it a habit. Get your review link from your Google Business Profile, under the option to ask for reviews, and turn it into something people can use.

• Put it on a QR code on the receipt, the bill folder, the invoice or the card you leave after a job.
• Put it in the thank-you email or text you send the next day.
• Make it the same wording every time, and ask everyone.

Timing depends on the business. A restaurant or pub does best the day after, while the evening is still fresh. A tradesperson does best on the day the job is finished, when the kitchen is clean and the customer is relieved. A clinic or a school might wait a week.

Ask politely, once, and leave it there. Do not hover while someone types it on your phone, and do not set up a tablet by the door.

The rules that keep your profile safe

Google's policy for reviews is short and strictly applied. Breaking it can get reviews removed, stop your profile receiving new ones, or put a warning on your listing. In practice it comes down to a few points.

• No incentives. You cannot offer a discount, a free drink, a prize draw entry or any other reward in exchange for a review. The same goes for offering anything to have a negative review changed or removed.
• No gating. You cannot ask only the customers you think will be happy, and you cannot run a private survey first and send only the good scores to Google. Ask everyone the same way.
• No fakes. No reviews written by you, your staff, your family, your friends or an agency. No reviews of a competitor.
• No scripts and no quotas. Do not tell people what to write, and do not set your team a target number of reviews to collect. Google's wording on staff targets has been tightened recently, so read the current policy before you set one.

Genuine reviews from real customers, asked for in the same way each time, are fine. That is the whole of it.

The law now agrees

Fake reviews are now a matter for the regulator as well as for Google. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 put them on a list of practices that are banned outright, and the rules came into force on 6 April 2025. In broad terms, the Act bans submitting fake reviews or commissioning someone else to write them. It also bans reviews that hide the fact that they were paid for, and presenting reviews in a misleading way. That includes keeping the bad ones off your own website while showing the good ones.

The Competition and Markets Authority can investigate and fine businesses directly, with penalties of up to 10 per cent of global turnover. A café in Cookham will not be at the sharp end of that, but the rule is the same for everyone, and an agency offering you a bundle of five-star reviews is offering to break it on your behalf. This is general information and not legal advice, so ask a solicitor if you are unsure about something specific.

If you show reviews on your own site, show them fairly. Do not quote only the glowing ones and bury the rest.

Reply to reviews, all of them

Replying is part of the job. It shows the next customer that someone is behind the counter, and it often matters more to them than the review itself. Keep it short, warm and specific.

• Use the reviewer's name and thank them.
• Mention one real detail, such as the dish, the job or the person who looked after them.
• Say you hope to see them again.
• Skip the copy-and-paste. A row of identical replies reads as a robot.

A good reply to a happy review is two lines. Thank you, Priya. We are glad the walk from Cookham worked up an appetite. See you in the autumn. It names the person and the moment, and it sounds like someone who works there.

Do not stuff your replies with search words. A line such as thanks for coming, we loved having you in does more good than a paragraph of keywords.

When the review is a bad one

Every business gets some. A fair complaint tells you what to fix, and an honest reply shows everyone else how you handle things.

1. Wait until you have calmed down. Draft it, sleep on it, then post it.
2. Reply within a day or two. Open with thanks, and apologise for how they felt without arguing over the facts.
3. Say what you will do, or what you have already done.
4. Give an email address and offer to continue the conversation there.
5. Never share private details about the customer's visit in public.

A good reply reads something like this: Thank you for telling us. A cold main course after a long wait is not what we want for anyone, and I am sorry it happened. I have spoken with the kitchen. Please email us, and we would like to put it right. That is calm, brief and specific. Anyone reading it learns more about you from the reply than from the review.

When the review is not fair

Some one-star reviews are not complaints. They come from people who have never been, a competitor, an ex-employee with a grievance, or somebody angry about something unrelated. You can flag these to Google, but only if they break its policy, which means spam, fake content, a conflict of interest, offensive language, or a review about a different business. A review that is simply harsh or unfair stays up.

1. Find the review in your Business Profile and use the menu to flag it as inappropriate.
2. Pick the reason that fits and explain briefly.
3. Reply in public in the meantime. Keep it polite and factual, and say you can find no record of the visit if that is true.
4. If nothing has happened after a few days, you can appeal through Google's Business Profile support.

Do not offer the reviewer money or a refund to take it down. That breaks the incentive rule above. Legal advice is the route for anything that looks like defamation.

A habit to start this week

Set the review link up, print the QR code and ask every customer the same way. Reply to the last ten reviews you have not answered. That alone is a good week's work, wherever you are between Henley and Windsor. Our local SEO and Google Business Profile service handles this for clients, and the Google Business Profile guide for venues covers the rest of the listing. Home services and trades live on this, as our page on websites for trades and home services explains.