How to Get More Google Reviews: The Honest UK Guide for 2026

The way to get more Google reviews is to ask every customer, every time, with a direct link, at the moment the job is finished. That is most of it. The part most guides leave out is the line you cannot cross. In the UK, fake reviews have been a banned practice since 6 April 2025, and Google’s own policy forbids several tactics that popular review tools still sell. This guide covers both: how to get more Google reviews quickly, and how to do it without putting your Business Profile or your business at risk.

Why Google reviews matter for a local business

Google reviews show next to your Business Profile in Google Maps and in Search, so they are often the first thing potential customers read about you. They also affect where you appear. Google’s help page on local ranking says prominence is partly based on “how many reviews you have” and that “more reviews and positive ratings can help your business’s local ranking.”

So reviews do two jobs for a local business. They help you show up in local search, and they help a stranger decide to call you rather than the business listed above you.

If your profile itself is still half finished, fix that first. Our Google Business Profile guide covers categories, services and photos, and our local SEO guide for small businesses shows where reviews sit in the bigger picture.

How to get your Google review link

Everything below depends on a direct link that opens the review box for your business. Without it, a customer has to search for you, find the listing and hunt for the button. Most give up.

Google’s steps to create a review link or QR code:

1. Go to your Google Business Profile at business.google.com.
2. Select Read reviews, then Get more reviews.
3. Select Copy to copy the review link, or right click the QR code and choose Save image as to download it.

Google says review QR codes can currently only be generated in a computer browser, not on a phone, so do this one at your desk. Test the link on your own phone before you send it to anyone. It should open straight to the star rating box.

One more practical point from Google’s help pages: customers must be signed in to a Google Account to leave a review. They can create one with a non Gmail email address, which is worth saying in your request if your customers are not everyday Google users.

How to ask for Google reviews

The single biggest lever is asking. Most happy customers never think to leave a review. They just move on with their day. A short request with the link in it changes that.

Ask every customer, not only the happy ones

This is where many review strategies go wrong. Google’s Maps content policy says merchants must not “discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers.” The UK regulator says the same thing in its own words. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) fake reviews guidance describes cherry picking as including “encouraging just those who are satisfied to leave reviews.”

That rules out a common setup sold by review software: send everyone a satisfaction survey, route the high scores to Google and send the low scores to a private feedback form. It is often called review gating or NPS triggered requests. It looks clever, but it is the exact behaviour both Google and the CMA describe. Ask everyone the same way, and use a separate customer feedback form for anyone who wants to tell you something privately as well.

Get the timing right

Ask when the work is done and fresh in the customer’s mind. For a trade, that is when the job is signed off. For a shop, it is with the receipt or the delivery email. For a service business, it is when the project is handed over. A request that arrives a month later competes with everything else in their inbox and usually loses.

What to say: review request examples

Keep it short, name the job and include the link. You can say what kind of detail helps other customers in general terms, but Google’s policy says you must not request “that specific content be included,” so never script the review itself or ask for a staff member to be named.

Text message:

Hi [name], thanks for choosing us for [the job]. If you have two minutes, an honest Google review would really help other people in [your town] find us: [your link]. Thank you, [your name]

Email:

Subject: How did we do?
Thank you for trusting us with your new website. We would value an honest review on Google. It takes about a minute and helps other businesses decide whether we are right for them. Leave a review here: [your link]. Whatever you think, we read every one.

Notice what is not there: no discount, no prize draw, no “five stars please”. Each request is a genuine ask for an honest review.

Where to share your review link

Once you have the link and a message, put it everywhere a customer already looks. Google itself suggests receipts, thank you emails, the end of a chat conversation and a printed QR code in store, and notes you can also send requests by email, WhatsApp message or a Facebook post.

• Your invoice or receipt. One line and a link on every invoice reaches every paying customer at no extra cost.
• Your email signature. Every email you send becomes a quiet reminder.
• Your website. A “Review us on Google” button in the footer, or on a dedicated review page, catches customers who visit you after the job.
• Printed QR codes. A card left with the customer, a sticker on the van or a sign at the till.
• Follow up messages. One polite reminder a few days later is fine. A chain of them is pressure.

Google’s policy also says businesses should not “require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews” while they are still with you. A QR code by the till is an invitation. A member of staff standing over a customer while they type is not.

Automate review requests without breaking the rules

Businesses with a steady stream of new reviews rarely rely on memory. They build the request into the way they already work, so it goes out after every job. That is the difference between a review strategy and a burst of reviews in a good week.

A simple review process looks like this:

1. The job is marked as complete in your CRM or booking system.
2. An automatic text or email goes out the same day with your Google review link.
3. If there is no review after a few days, one reminder goes out. Then it stops.
4. New reviews are checked weekly and every one gets a reply.

Two rules keep this on the right side of the CMA guidance. First, send it to every customer, not a filtered list. Second, keep it running. The guidance lists “arbitrarily stopping and starting review invitations” as one of the ways a business can interfere with genuine negative reviews, so do not pause requests after a difficult week.

Do not set staff targets for a number of reviews either. Google’s policy lists “merchants requesting that staff solicit a certain number of reviews” as something it does not allow. Train the team to ask every customer instead, and measure whether the request went out, not how many stars came back.

What not to do: fake reviews and incentives

Since 6 April 2025, under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, fake reviews are on the UK list of banned practices. The CMA defines a fake review as one that “purports to be, but is not, based on a person’s genuine experience.” It can now fine a business up to 10% of its global turnover for breaking consumer protection law.

Here is what that means in practice for a small business:

• Never buy reviews. Not from a website, a freelancer or a “reputation package”. Fake positive reviews are banned outright.
• Never offer a reward for a Google review. UK law allows some incentivised reviews if they are clearly labelled, but Google does not. Its policy prohibits offering “payment, discounts, free of cost goods and/or services” in exchange for a review, or for changing or removing a negative one. A discount for a review is off the table on Google.
• Do not ask staff, friends or family to review you. Google treats reviews from current or former employees and family members as a conflict of interest. The CMA counts a business asking a member of staff to write a review as commissioning one.
• Do not post reviews from several accounts or ask someone else to. Google lists content “posted from multiple accounts by or at the request of one person” as fake engagement.

Google enforces this too. For Business Profiles that break its fake review policy, Google can stop the profile receiving new reviews for a set period, unpublish existing reviews for a set period, and show a warning telling people that fake reviews were removed. That warning does far more damage than a few honest three star reviews ever could.

The regulator is active. In July 2025 the CMA reviewed the websites of more than 100 businesses and found that 54 of them could be failing to comply with its guidance, and in March 2026 it opened investigations into five businesses over their online reviews, according to the CMA’s online consumer reviews case page.

How to handle negative reviews

Negative reviews are part of a genuine review profile. Google’s tips on reviews say they “aren’t necessarily a sign of poor business practices” and that a mix of feedback often reads as more trustworthy. How you reply matters more than the review itself, because future customers read both.

Google’s advice for replying to a negative review:

• Never share the reviewer’s private information or attack them personally.
• Check your records to understand what happened before you reply.
• Admit mistakes that were made, and explain what was outside your control.
• Apologise where it is due, sign with your name or initials, and reply promptly.
• Invite them to contact you by phone or email to put it right.

What you must not do is lean on the customer. The CMA guidance says businesses should not discourage negative reviews through “threats of harm or legal action,” or make an offer of dispute resolution “contingent on a consumer not leaving a negative review.” Fix the problem because it is the right thing to do. If the customer then chooses to update their review, that is their decision.

If a review breaks Google’s content policies, for example one from someone who was never a customer, flag it from your Business Profile for Google to check, reply calmly in public, and move on.

Reply to every review

Replying to reviews is one of the few things Google directly recommends for getting more of them. Its local ranking page says replies show “that you value their feedback” and that “positive reviews and helpful replies can help your business stand out.”

Keep replies short, specific and human. Thank the person, mention the job if it helps, and skip the sales pitch. Google’s own advice is to “be a friend, not a salesperson.”

How many reviews do you need to raise your star rating?

On a simple average, the maths is easy to work out for your own profile. Say you have 20 reviews averaging 4.2 stars, which is 84 stars in total. To reach 4.5, you need enough new five star reviews that (84 + 5 × n) divided by (20 + n) equals 4.5. That works out at 12 more five star reviews.

A steady flow of genuine reviews also means one bad week does less harm. Google’s displayed rating may not match a hand calculation exactly, so treat this as a guide to the effort involved, not an exact target.

How we handle Google reviews at AMW Media

We are a High Wycombe agency founded in 2024, a Google Partner, Meta Business Partner, Shopify Partner and Framer Expert, and we hold 30+ five star reviews. When we set up a Google Business Profile for a client, the work includes a review request that runs every month instead of in bursts. Google Business Profile setup is from £500, and ongoing SEO is from £349 a month. If you want to see how reviews fit alongside rankings and paid search, our guide to SEO vs PPC is a good next read.

Frequently asked questions

How can I get more Google reviews for free?

Copy your review link from your Google Business Profile, then share it on invoices, in emails, by text and as a printed QR code. Ask every customer when the job is finished. None of this costs anything.

Can you pay for Google reviews?

No. Buying reviews breaks Google’s policy and, in the UK, fake reviews are a banned practice under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. Offering a discount or gift in exchange for a Google review is also against Google’s policy.

Where do I find the link for my Google reviews?

In your Google Business Profile, select Read reviews, then Get more reviews, then Copy. The QR code is on the same screen, but you need a computer browser to generate it.

Can Google detect fake reviews?

Google removes content it finds is fake, including reviews showing “unusual volumes or patterns” that suggest manipulation. Profiles that break the policy can be blocked from new reviews and shown with a public warning.

Can I ask only happy customers for a review?

No. Google does not allow businesses to selectively solicit positive reviews, and the CMA treats encouraging only satisfied customers as cherry picking. Ask every customer the same way.