01How reviews feed local ranking
Google ranks local results on three things: relevance, distance and prominence. Reviews sit inside prominence. Google's own Business Profile help says the number of reviews you have is part of how well known a business looks, and that more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking. It also says that replying to reviews shows customers you value their feedback, and that positive reviews with helpful replies help a business stand out. So the profile work is not only collecting stars. It is answering every review, the good ones and the bad ones, in a way the next customer reading them will trust.
- Reviews count toward prominence, one of Google's three local ranking factors
- Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking
- Reply to every review, positive and negative, because the next customer reads the reply too
02What Google allows and what it removes
Google lets a business ask for reviews, and gives you the tools to do it: a short review link and a QR code from your Business Profile, which you can print at the till or add to a receipt. What its contribution policy bans is just as clear. No payment, discount or free service in exchange for a review. No discouraging negative reviews, and no asking only the customers you expect to be happy. No pressuring people to review while they are still on the premises, and no telling them what to write. Reviews posted against these rules get removed, so a shortcut can cost you the reviews you already earned.
- Allowed: the review link and QR code from your Business Profile, offered to every customer
- Banned: incentives of any kind in exchange for a review
- Banned: asking only happy customers or discouraging negative reviews
- For the timing of the ask itself, read our post on automated review requests after a service
The website half of local search
Reviews are one half of how Google reads a local business. The other half is whether the website states the same business clearly. For Santorini Hotel in Eforie Nord, PROOF48 published the reception, restaurant and complaints phone lines on the site and in structured data, so search engines read the hotel as a hotel rather than a generic page. We do not publish the hotel's occupancy or booking figures, and we do not quote review numbers we did not produce.
See the build: Santorini HotelQuestions, answered
Can I offer a discount in exchange for a Google review?
No. Google's policy bans payment, discounts and free goods or services in exchange for a review, and reviews posted that way get removed from Maps. Ask every customer the same way and offer nothing for it.
What if a review is unfair or fake?
Google lets you report a review that breaks its policy, though it does not always remove it. Reply calmly either way, because other customers read your answer. FOUND's review monitoring catches a new negative review early, so it does not sit unanswered for weeks.
Where PROOF48 fits
More reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking, but only reviews that follow Google's rules stay up. Share your review link or QR code with every customer, reply to what comes in, and never pay for a review. FOUND, at 297 EUR a month, manages the profile and watches the reviews.
Cosmin Tiu · Founder, PROOF48
Cosmin has worked in online marketing and software development since 2018, and has built with AI every day since January 2023. He still writes code from scratch daily, in Python, React, Rust and C#. PROOF48 ships business websites in 48 hours and invoices afterwards, so every opinion on this blog was paid for in real builds, not in theory.