Send your Google review link to every customer, or to none
If only your satisfied customers get your Google review link, you're breaking Google's rules. Send it to everyone, and on Yelp, ask no one.
Say you send a short feedback form after every sale in East Hampton, and only the customers who check “very satisfied” get your link to review you on Google. Google’s policy forbids that. Send the link to every customer or to none of them.
The Federal Trade Commission, the federal agency that enforces the law against unfair or deceptive business practices, takes a similar view. Its guidance says a setup much like that may be unfair or deceptive if it makes the posted reviews substantially more positive than they would otherwise have been. And Yelp, the review website, names it as one reason businesses shouldn’t ask for reviews at all.
What Google forbids
Your Google reviews appear on your Business Profile, Google’s name for the listing that shows your business on Search and Maps. Google’s content policy for Maps lists what businesses may not do, among them: “Discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers.” Google says a Business Profile that breaks its guidelines becomes disabled or suspended and won’t show to other users on Google until the problem is fixed.
The list goes on. Don’t require or pressure customers to review you while they’re at your business. Don’t ask for specific content. Don’t have staff bring in a certain number of reviews, or reviews that name a staff member. Asking itself is allowed. Google lets you encourage reviews of a genuine experience, as long as you offer no reward and don’t try to influence the rating or what the review says.
What the FTC and Yelp say
The FTC’s 2024 rule on reviews has no specific ban on asking only the customers you think are happy, FTC staff say. But they add that the practice could break the FTC Act, a law the agency enforces. They point to the agency’s Endorsement Guides, which explain how that law applies to endorsements and testimonials in advertising.
An example in those Guides reads like the feedback form above. A marketer asks recent buyers for feedback. It invites the ones who give very positive feedback to post reviews on other websites, and simply thanks everyone else. That “may be an unfair or deceptive practice,” the Guides say, if the posted reviews come out substantially more positive than they would have without it. Had the marketer invited all recent buyers, the request would not have been unfair or deceptive, even with a stated hope for positive reviews.
Yelp asks businesses not to request reviews from anyone: customers, mailing list subscribers, friends or family. One reason it gives is that many businesses only ask happy customers, which leads to biased ratings. Yelp singles out asking after a survey or contact form. It says its software may not recommend reviews that seem prompted or encouraged by the business. Those reviews still sit behind a link at the bottom of your Yelp page, but they don’t count toward your star rating or review count. On Yelp, even asking every customer breaks the rule.
Where your Google link goes
Put the link where every customer meets it. Google suggests receipts, thank-you emails, the end of a chat and a printed QR code in the store. A QR code is a square barcode a customer scans with a phone. To get yours:
- Go to your Business Profile and select Read Reviews, then Get more reviews.
- Select Copy to copy the review link.
- For the QR code, right-click it and select Save image as.... Google says that currently works only in a computer browser, not on a phone.
Then walk through your own feedback form, receipt and thank-you email the way a customer would. If the link appears only after a good score, show it to everyone, whatever they answered.
The Standard: On Google, send your review link to all of your customers or to none of them. On Yelp, don’t ask anyone.
Source: Google Maps User Generated Content Policy Help, “Prohibited & restricted content“; Google Business Profile Help, “Tips to get more reviews,” “Create a Google link or QR code to request reviews” and “Find your business on Google“; FTC, “The Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule: Questions and Answers“; FTC Endorsement Guides, 16 CFR 255.0 and 255.2, and the Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465, via eCFR; Yelp Support Center, “Don’t Ask for Reviews“; Yelp Trust & Safety, “Recommendation software,” all read Oct. 12, 2026.