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Google review policy self-check
Most businesses that break the rules did not mean to - they just did not know where the line was. Seven questions, two minutes. Your answers stay in your own browser.
What the seven questions cover
They map to the seven lines businesses cross most often: paying or rewarding for reviews, asking only the customers you know are happy, writing reviews on a customer's behalf, posting many reviews from one device, putting a review kiosk on the counter, making a review a condition of a prize draw, and buying reviews outright.
Answer for what you actually do, not what you intend to do. Nothing is uploaded — the answers stay in your browser — so honest answers are the only ones worth giving.
Reading the verdict
Results come in three levels: fine, grey area, and clear violation. Grey area does not mean safe. It means Google has not written that exact case down, but if you are reported you will probably lose — and a competitor reporting you is the usual trigger.
If you are already over a line, stop first and repair second. Mass review removals and profile suspensions rarely arrive out of nowhere; they build up for months and then settle all at once.
The two lines people cross most
The first is asking only happy customers. Most owners think this is simply good sense; Google prohibits it outright. Why, and what it costs, is in Why you cannot ask only your happy customers.
The second is a small discount in exchange for a review. Discounts are fine; tying them to a review is not. Where the line sits is in Can you offer a discount for a Google review?
The compliant version is to invite everybody the same way. For when to ask and what to say, the Review request script generator gives you three lines to use.
Without those tactics, where do reviews come from
The check tells you what you cannot do. That leaves one question: without filtering customers, without incentives, without ghost-writing, how do reviews actually arrive?
In practice, ten happy customers, and often not one of them writes a review — not because they do not want to, but because it is a hassle, and typing it out is worse. Review Helper cuts that step to thirty seconds: the customer scans your code, ticks a few things they actually experienced, and the page turns it into a sentence in their own words. Copy, paste, posted. We do not ghost-write and we do not post for anyone — what they write, and whether to post it, stays their call. Three free reviews for every Google listing, nothing to pay up front, no card needed. No monthly fee: you pay per use.