How to Get Google Reviews as a Contractor (the Rules)

How to get Google reviews as a contractor: ask every customer at the end of every job, in person and then by email with the link to your profile, and never offer anything for it. Google removes reviews that were paid for or prompted by an incentive, and a federal rule announced in 2024 lets the FTC seek civil penalties against businesses that knowingly fake, buy or suppress reviews. BrightLocal's 2026 survey of 1,002 US consumers found 97 percent read reviews online, and Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking.

Why a two-truck contractor needs Google reviews

A prospect who searches for a sealcoater or a lawn service sees the map first, with each profile's star rating and review count. Google's local ranking page names three factors, relevance, distance and prominence (its summary line calls the third one popularity), and says prominence is also based on how many reviews you have. Recency counts too: 74 percent of consumers look for reviews written in the last three months, and 47 percent will not use a business with fewer than 20 reviews. Eleven reviews from two years ago read as a business that stopped trying.

How to ask: the link, the moment and the words

Get the Google review link once

1. 1Step 1: Open your Business Profile at business.google.com on a computer; the QR code is only generated in a computer browser, not on a phone.
2. 2Step 2: Select Read reviews, then Get more reviews, the share icon.
3. 3Step 3: Select Copy to copy the link, or right-click the QR code and save the image.
4. 4Step 4: Put the link in your email signature and invoice footer, and the QR code on the card you leave behind.

The customer must be signed in to a Google Account to post; Google notes they can create one with a non-Gmail address.

When to ask

Ask while the work is in front of the customer: the walkthrough at the end of the job, or the day the final invoice is paid. A request a month later arrives after the new stripes are ordinary again. For recurring work, ask after the first visit that goes well and again at the end of the season, not after every visit.

What to say

A request, a reason and the link. Three samples to adapt:

• At the walkthrough: if the work looks good to you, a Google review helps the next person in town find a contractor who shows up. Here is the card with the code.
• Email, same day: Thanks for having the crew out today. A Google review at the link below helps more than any ad. Positive or negative, say what happened.
• Email, after a repeat visit: The crew has been out a few times now. A short Google review about how it has gone helps your neighbors decide.

Say positive or negative out loud. That is the wording the FTC's own guidance uses for a request that is allowed, and it removes any hint that only praise is wanted.

Ask in person, then send the link

The in-person ask gets the yes; the link gets the review. A crew lead who mentions it at the truck and an email an hour later with the link is the whole system. Customers are used to the request; BrightLocal found 78 percent were asked to leave feedback for a business in the last 12 months.

What the Google review policy for businesses forbids

Google's Maps user-contributed content policy lists what is not allowed. Five lines matter to a contractor.

• Paid reviews. Reviews or ratings paid for, directly or in kind, are fake engagement and are removed.
• Incentives. Money, a discount or free goods or services in exchange for posting any review, or for revising or removing a negative one, is prohibited; Google's get-reviews page calls it strictly prohibited.
• Selective asking. A business may not discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews. Asking everyone is fine; asking only the happy ones is not.
• Conflicts of interest. A review based on a conflict of interest, which may include current or former employment or a contractual relationship, is prohibited. Your foreman and your supplier should not review your company.
• Multiple accounts. Reviews from several accounts by or at the request of one person are removed.

What is allowed is plainer: remind customers with the link or QR code, reply to reviews, and value all of them. Google notes that a mix of positive and negative feedback often feels more trustworthy.

The FTC fake review rule: what 16 CFR Part 465 bans

On August 14, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission announced its final Trade Regulation Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465, effective 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. Google's policy decides whether a review stays up; this rule decides whether the FTC can fine the business behind it, since it lets the agency seek civil penalties against knowing violators. It prohibits six things.

• Fake or false reviews and testimonials: reviews that misrepresent who wrote them or what the writer experienced; a business may not create, sell, buy or post them when it knew or should have known they were fake.
• Buying positive or negative reviews: an incentive conditioned, expressly or implicitly, on a review expressing a particular sentiment.
• Insider reviews: reviews by officers, managers, employees or relatives that do not clearly and conspicuously disclose the connection to the business.
• Company-controlled review sites: presenting a site the business controls as an independent source of reviews for its own category.
• Review suppression: unfounded or groundless legal threats, physical threats or intimidation to get a negative review taken down, and claiming the reviews shown represent all or most of those submitted when negative ones were suppressed.
• Fake social media indicators: buying or selling followers or views generated by a bot or hijacked account.

Incentives and disclosure, in plain words

The FTC's endorsement guidance draws the line. Inviting all of your customers to post honest reviews, positive or negative, is fine. Conditioning an incentive, a discount for example, on a review being positive is not. Where a customer did receive something of value, the reviewer has to disclose it. Since Google removes any incentivized review, the practical rule for a Google profile is simpler than the federal one: offer nothing.

The same guidance answers the family question: a relative or friend should disclose the relationship, and an employee definitely should. On Google an employee's review is a conflict of interest and comes down anyway.

Good to know: This is general information, not legal advice. The rule's text and the FTC's guidance change; read the current versions at ftc.gov and ask a lawyer before you rely on them.

Where Google reviews show up

Three places, and the third is the one contractors forget.

• The Business Profile in Search and Maps: the star rating and count under the name in the map results, and the reviews tab with your replies.
• Local ranking: prominence, one of Google's three local ranking factors, draws on how many reviews you have, and Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help.
• Your own website: a prospect who came from a referral, a yard sign or a bid may never open Maps. Reviews on the home page do the same work there.

A site built through MakeHay's Website add-on shows your Google reviews and refreshes them weekly, so a new review appears without anyone editing a page. The add-on is a site built for you at $197 a month or $1,970 a year, hosting included and a domain free for the first year; what you get is on the websites page.

Put the ask on a schedule so nobody forgets

The in-person ask depends on the crew lead remembering. The email should not. Set a rule: every paid invoice sends a review request with the link. Then the only thing a person has to do is the handshake at the truck.

MakeHay's automations send a review request by email with a button to your review link when an invoice is paid, alongside quote follow-ups and invoice reminders on a schedule you set. The wording is yours to change in the email templates, and every automated email ends with an unsubscribe link. Paste the link from your profile into the automation once, and every paid invoice asks.

How to respond to a bad Google review

A one-star review with no reply tells every prospect the owner does not read them, and 89 percent of consumers expect business owners to respond. Google's reply page adds two facts that shape the reply: the person who wrote the review is notified when you reply, and they can still change their review afterward. A calm reply is the one thing that gives the reviewer a reason to change it.

The business must be verified before it can reply. Replies post publicly as the business, not under your personal name, after a check against Google's content policies; they usually take up to 10 minutes to review but sometimes up to 30 days.

1. 1Step 1: Read it twice and look the job up before writing. Many bad reviews name a real miss: a call not returned, a line that bled, a gate left open.
2. 2Step 2: Reply within a day, in four sentences: thank them for the detail, say what happened without excuses, say what you did or will do, and give a phone number to finish it off the page.
3. 3Step 3: Never argue facts in public or mention anything personal. The reply is for the next reader, not the reviewer.
4. 4Step 4: If the fix lands, ask once, in private, whether they would update the review, and offer nothing for it. Then go back to asking every customer.

When the review breaks a rule

Any review can be reported from the profile, but Google removes only one that breaks its content policies, such as the ones above. Google says evaluation typically takes several days, the status shows in the Reviews Management Tool, and a one-time appeal follows a no-violation decision. It also says not to report a review just because you disagree with it or dislike it. Never answer with a legal threat: the FTC's rule names unfounded legal threats and intimidation used to remove negative reviews as review suppression.