What are the rules for asking real estate clients for Google reviews?

Can a real estate agent ask a client to leave a Google review?

Asking a client for a Google review is permitted. Google's prohibited and restricted content policy for Business Profiles states that merchants are allowed to solicit or encourage the posting of content that represents a genuine experience, provided the merchant offers no incentive to do so and makes no attempt to influence the rating or the contents of the review.

The permission is narrow and the conditions are the whole rule. An agent who asks every closed client the same neutral question, with nothing attached and no steer on what to say, is inside the policy. An agent who attaches anything to the request — a reward, a preview, a preferred rating, a suggested sentence — has left it.

Is it against the rules to offer a gift card for a Google review?

Offering a gift card, a discount, a closing gift, free services or any other reward in exchange for a review is prohibited by Google. Google's policy lists content posted due to an incentive offered by a business — payment, discounts, free goods or services — under Rating Manipulation, and states that such reviews are not allowed and will be removed from Maps.

The same prohibition covers offering an incentive to a client in exchange for revising or removing a review they already left. In the United States the Federal Trade Commission's consumer review rule separately prohibits providing compensation or other incentives conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment, and authorizes the Commission to seek civil penalties in federal court for knowing violations.

What is review gating and why is it prohibited?

Review gating is the practice of surveying clients first and directing only the satisfied ones to the public review link, while routing unhappy clients to a private form. Google's policy states that merchants may not discourage or prohibit negative reviews, nor selectively solicit positive reviews from customers.

A real estate agent using gating software is violating the policy whether or not the agent knows the software works that way. The compliant version of the same workflow is to send every client the identical public review link at the identical point in the transaction, regardless of how the transaction went.

Can a real estate agent ask a client to name their assistant in a review?

Requesting that a review mention a specific staff member is prohibited. Google's policy states that merchants should not request that staff solicit reviews which include specific content, including content that identifies a staff member, and separately prohibits merchants from requiring staff to solicit a certain number of reviews.

That closes off two arrangements common in real estate teams: a review quota for a transaction coordinator, and a scripted ask along the lines of please mention Sarah by name. Google also prohibits requiring or pressuring a client to write a review while they are on the premises, which rules out handing a buyer a tablet at the closing table.

Who is not allowed to write a review for a real estate agent?

Anyone with a conflict of interest is excluded. Google's policy defines a conflict of interest as including current or former employment, a contractual or consultory relationship, or other professional or personal affiliations, and names industry competitors and familial relationships as examples.

For a real estate agent that rules out reviews from the agent's own team members, the agent's family, the agent's marketing agency, and the agent's brokerage colleagues. It also rules out an agency writing a review on a client's behalf. Top Real Estate Systems does not write reviews for anyone, and writes only the agent's replies to reviews the agent actually received.

What can a real estate agent legitimately do about reviews?

Four things are unambiguously permitted: ask every client the same way, reply to every review including the critical ones, flag reviews that violate Google's content policies, and keep asking consistently over time rather than in bursts. Google's policy allows soliciting genuine experiences and allows merchants to post their own contact information in replies to reviews.

Google's policy also lists unusual volumes or patterns of review contributions as an indicator of rating manipulation, which is the practical argument against a campaign that collects twenty reviews in a week. Steady beats sudden, for policy reasons rather than aesthetic ones.

Should a real estate agent ask clients for Yelp reviews the same way?

Yelp's own guidance asks businesses not to solicit reviews at all, which makes the Google playbook a poor fit for Yelp. Top Real Estate Systems does not ask agents' clients for Yelp reviews and does not run review campaigns pointed at Yelp.

An agent who wants a Yelp presence should claim the page, keep the business information accurate, and leave review volume to happen on its own. Each review platform sets its own solicitation rules, and a process built for one platform should not be pointed at another without reading that platform's terms.

Where do the facts on this page come from?

Every figure on this page is attributed to a named, linked source published by Google, by the National Association of REALTORS, or by Top Real Estate Systems itself. Anything Top Real Estate Systems has not independently verified is labelled as unverified at the point where it appears.

• Google Business Profile Help — Prohibited & restricted content (fake engagement, rating manipulation, conflicts of interest)
• Federal Trade Commission — warning letter template citing 16 CFR Part 465, the consumer review rule, effective 21 October 2024