What is review gating?

Review gating is the practice of screening customers before inviting them to review publicly, so that only the happy ones are sent to Google or another public platform. Google prohibits it explicitly. Businesses caught doing it can have their reviews removed, and the removal is not selective.

The practice spread because it works in the short term and the wording sounds harmless: a quick satisfaction question, then a public link for the fives and a private feedback form for everyone else. The result is a rating that describes a filtered sample rather than the business.

The compliant version is simpler than the gated one. Ask every customer, in the same way, with the same link. Handle a bad reply privately when it arrives, publicly when it lands as a review. A business confident enough to ask everybody usually ends up with a more believable page than one averaging 4.9 with no dissent anywhere.