Can you buy Google reviews?

google reviews help for business

If your business doesn’t have many reviews on your Google business page, or maybe has too many negative ones, you may be wondering if you can buy Google reviews. While it’s possible to do so, the short answer is the cliche “just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

While there are ways to get disingenuous and non-organic reviews, based off of google guidelines to remove inappropriate reviews, the practice is not appreciated by Google (or really any review site). Using fake reviews can result in getting your business blacklisted or worse, as some review sites are cracking down and taking legal action against egregious offenders.

Why are online reviews important?

There’s no denying the impact of online reviews. 92% of customers read reviews before making a purchase decision. Bad Google Reviews cause customers to leave. 88% trust reviews as much as recommendations from friends and family (BrightLocal Consumer Survey). Clearly, having good reviews gives you a huge advantage over competitors. But here’s the catch: reviews are only effective if they’re authentic. Both customers and review sites have a knack for spotting phonies.

The best method to get Google Reviews:

Ask for feedback immediately

Meet them on mobile

Make it super easy

Automate the whole process



Why You Shouldn’t Buy Google Reviews

Similar to Yelp, Google dislikes businesses that buy Google reviews. Doing so is also against Google’s guidelines and they too have a process for detecting Google business pages that engage in the practice. Google, however, treats the situation differently than does Yelp. Rather than publicly embarrass the company that buys a Google review, Google will simply take it down (in some cases we’ve heard of accounts being completely shut down).

While Google may not be as harsh, the company still takes a holistic approach to the quality of their reviews. In fact, Google has roughly 12 different types of violations that will inspire the removal of reviews:

Advertising

Spam

Phone Numbers or URLs

Off-topic Reviews

Keep it Clean

Conflict of Interest

Illegal Content

Copyrighted Content

Sexually Explicit Material

Impersonation

Personal and Confidential Information

Hate Speech



Google is arguably the most important place to get more reviews

Google reviews are quickly becoming the gold standard of online reviews for businesses world wide.

Not only is your Google listing (Google My Business or "GMB") important for consumers looking for your basic business information (name, address, phone number), it also serves as the first impression for people learning about your credibility and reputation. Your Google reviews are what's populated within your listing on the right hand panel of search results on desktop, and one of the first things people see when searching for you on their cell phones (see 2 screen shots below).