A voice for business

Google Reviews Toolkit

A complete, plain-English guide to claiming, optimizing, and protecting your Google Business Profile — built for Canton's small and local businesses. Sourced directly from Google and the Federal Trade Commission. Jump to any section below, or read straight through.

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Getting oriented

Why Google reviews matter

Reviews show up directly next to your Business Profile in both Google Search and Google Maps — often before a customer ever visits your website. Google says reviews can help a business stand out and give potential customers helpful information before they reach out.

Reviews also feed directly into how Google ranks local businesses. Local search results are based mainly on three factors — relevance, distance, and prominence — and prominence is shaped in part by how many reviews a business has and how positive they are. In Google's own words, more reviews and positive ratings can help a business's local ranking.

Responding matters too. Google notes that replying shows customers you value their feedback, and that positive reviews paired with helpful replies can help a business stand out in search results.

How your star rating is actually calculated

Your overall score is simply the average of every rating published on Google for your business, shown on a 1-to-5-star scale. After a new review comes in, it can take up to two weeks for your overall score to update — so don't be alarmed if a recent review doesn't move the number right away.

Occasionally, a profile also shows ratings pulled in from other local review sites around the web. If you have a concern about one of those, Google directs businesses to reach out to the originating site directly, since those aren't reviews Google collected itself.

Takeaway A steady flow of genuine, recent reviews does double duty — it builds trust with customers and signals "prominence" to Google's ranking system.

Step one

Claim & verify your business profile

Before you can edit your business info or reply to a single review, Google requires you to verify ownership of your Business Profile.

  1. Find or claim your business. Search your business's name and city on Google, or search "my business" while signed into the right Google Account. If your business isn't listed yet, you'll add it; if it's listed but unclaimed, you'll claim it first.
  2. Verify your business. Google automatically determines which methods are available to you based on your business type, region, and other details — phone or text, email, a live video call, or a mailed postcard code.
  3. Wait for review. Verification can take up to 5 business days, though some businesses are verified instantly — for example, if you've already verified your website through Google Search Console.

Tip Keep your verification code private. Google will never ask you for it, and sharing it — even with someone helping manage your profile — is discouraged.

Local ranking

Optimize your profile: the 3 ranking factors

Google is direct about this — there's no way to pay for a better local ranking. Instead, local results are based mainly on three factors.

Relevance

How well your profile matches what someone is searching for. Complete, detailed business information helps Google match you to the right searches.

Distance

How far your business is from the person searching, or from the location they've searched near.

Prominence

How well-known your business is — including signals like how many websites link to you, and how many reviews and ratings you have. More reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking.

What to keep updated

  • Full business address and service area
  • Accurate business hours, including holiday hours
  • Correct business category
  • Attributes like parking or Wi-Fi availability
  • Photos and videos that show what you offer
Building momentum

How to get more reviews

Google's own recommended method is to create a shareable review link or QR code directly from your Business Profile.

  • Go to your Business Profile → Read Reviews → Get more reviews
  • Copy the link, or download the QR code to print and display
  • Note: QR codes currently can only be generated on a computer browser, not mobile

Where to share it

  • On receipts
  • In thank-you emails
  • At the end of a chat or text interaction
  • Printed and displayed in-store
  • Through email, WhatsApp, or a Facebook post

A note for service-based businesses

Many Chamber members offer services rather than selling from a storefront — contractors, cleaners, consultants, and similar businesses. For these profiles, Google may ask a reviewing customer to rate specific aspects of the job and select which service was performed from your business's service list. That selection becomes part of the published review, so it's worth keeping your list of services current in your profile so customers can tag the right one.

Tip Customers must be signed into a Google Account to leave a review — but that account doesn't need to be a Gmail address.

Building trust

How to respond to reviews

Once your business is verified, replying is simple: go to your Business Profile → Read reviews → select Reply next to the review. Google reviews your reply before posting (usually within about 10 minutes, occasionally up to 30 days), and the customer is notified when you respond.

Replying to positive reviews

  • Be professional and polite — replies must follow Google's content policies too
  • Keep it short; long replies lose readers before the main point
  • Make replies specific rather than a generic "thank you" to everyone
  • Stay conversational, not promotional — avoid pitching deals in a reply

Replying to negative reviews

  • Protect privacy — never share a reviewer's private info or engage in personal attacks
  • Move complex issues to a private channel like phone or email
  • Be honest about what was and wasn't within your control
  • Apologize when appropriate — genuine empathy helps rebuild trust
  • Personalize the reply with the reviewer's name
  • Respond promptly — a timely reply shows you value the feedback
Know the rules

Google's review policies

Google is strict about how businesses can ask for and manage reviews. Two practices are explicitly and permanently against policy.

Never offer incentives

Offering any incentive — payment, a discount, free goods or services — in exchange for posting, changing, or removing a review is considered fake and misleading content, and is strictly prohibited by Google. This applies even to asking a customer to revise or remove a negative review in exchange for something.

Never "gate" your reviews

Discouraging or prohibiting negative reviews, or selectively soliciting only positive reviews from customers you expect will leave good feedback — a practice sometimes called review gating — is also against Google's content policies.

Ask every customer the same way, every time. If Google identifies a pattern of incentivized or filtered review requests, it can restrict a Business Profile's ability to receive or display reviews.

Beyond Google

The FTC's rules on reviews

Review rules aren't only a Google policy matter — they're federal law. In 2024, the Federal Trade Commission finalized a rule (effective October 21, 2024) that makes several deceptive review practices illegal nationwide, with the FTC able to pursue civil penalties against violators. It applies to reviews anywhere online, not just on Google.

Under the rule, businesses may not:

  • Buy, sell, or create fake reviews — including reviews generated by AI meant to look like they came from a real customer
  • Offer compensation or incentives for a review conditioned on it expressing a particular sentiment, whether stated outright or implied
  • Publish reviews from their own officers, managers, or employees without clearly disclosing that connection
  • Unfairly suppress negative reviews
  • Buy or sell fake indicators of social media influence, like followers or views

The takeaway: avoiding incentivized or fake reviews isn't just about staying in Google's good graces. Under federal law, it can carry real financial risk.

This section is general information, not legal advice. For questions about how the rule applies to your business, consult an attorney.

When something goes wrong

Handling negative or fake reviews

Google allows you to report any review, but only reviews that actually violate its content policies are eligible for removal — a review isn't reportable just because you disagree with it or dislike it.

How to report a review

  1. Go to your Business Profile → Read reviews
  2. Select Report next to the review in question
  3. Choose a reason, such as spam, profanity, or off-topic content
  4. Select Send report

Evaluation typically takes several days, and you can check the status in Google's Reviews Management Tool. If Google decides the review doesn't violate policy, you can submit a one-time appeal covering up to 10 reviews at once.

Good to know Google also runs automated spam detection that occasionally removes a legitimate review by mistake. If that happens, contacting Google support directly is the right next step.

A growing threat

Protecting against review extortion scams

Small, local businesses have increasingly become targets of a specific scam: someone posts a wave of fake 1- and 2-star reviews, then contacts the business demanding money, free goods, or services in exchange for taking them down. Google now has a dedicated process for reporting this, and treats it as a serious policy violation.

What to watch for

A sudden spike in 1-star and 2-star reviews, followed by a message — often through email or a messaging app — demanding payment or something of value to remove them.

What not to do

  • Don't engage with or pay the person contacting you — Google notes this can invite further attempts and doesn't guarantee removal
  • Don't try to resolve it privately by offering money or services

What to do instead

  1. Gather evidence immediately. Screenshots of the messages, the reviews themselves, and timestamps.
  2. Report it to Google through the merchant extortion report form, including your contact info, a link to the affected profile, and details on the suspicious reviews and the extortion attempt.

This scam has hit businesses across almost every industry — contractors, dentists, movers, consultants. If it happens to you, it's not personal, and it's not a reflection of your actual reputation.

Growing footprint

Managing reviews for multiple locations

Each location gets its own separate Business Profile and its own set of reviews — reviews don't automatically combine across locations.

  • If a business relocates but keeps the same name, Google typically moves existing reviews to the new profile automatically, with some exceptions such as hotels or golf courses
  • If a business changes ownership or management but keeps its name, its reviews stay in place
  • For businesses managing several locations at once, Google offers bulk location management through a "business group" account, which lets multiple team members share management and even run location-based ad campaigns
What's changing

AI & your business profile

Try Google's built-in AI description tool

Google Business Profile now includes a feature to generate an AI-suggested business description, built from your existing profile info and other public sources. Go to Edit profile → Description → Suggest description, then review and edit before saving — Google itself notes this AI-written text should be checked for accuracy.

Understanding AI Overviews

AI Overviews — the AI-generated summaries that now appear in many Google Search results — are a core, permanent part of Search that surface when Google's systems determine an AI-generated answer would help the searcher. Google is upfront that these AI responses can include mistakes and encourages people to verify important information elsewhere.

The practical takeaway for members: AI-powered search still pulls from the same underlying source — your Business Profile. Keeping your information accurate, complete, and backed by genuine, recent reviews remains the best way to be represented correctly, whether a customer finds you through a traditional search result or an AI-generated one.

Save this

Quick reference checklist

  • Claim and verify your Google Business Profile
  • Complete every field: address, hours, category, attributes, photos & videos
  • Create your review link or QR code and share it consistently
  • Reply to every review — positive and negative
  • Never offer incentives for reviews, or selectively ask happy customers only
  • Remember federal law, not just Google policy, prohibits fake or undisclosed insider reviews
  • Report genuinely policy-violating reviews through the Reviews Management Tool
  • Know the signs of a review extortion scam, and never pay to have reviews removed
  • Try Google's AI-suggested business description, then review it for accuracy
  • For multiple locations, set up a business group account to manage them together
Where this comes from

Sources & further reading

This toolkit is compiled directly from Google's official Business Profile Help documentation and the Federal Trade Commission's published rule on reviews. Policies and features change over time — check the links below anytime for the latest guidance.

Google Business Profile Help
Federal Trade Commission