Handle Your Reviews Legally (Or Risk a £300,000 Fine)

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you offering discounts for reviews?

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That might actually be illegal.

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Not Google's annoyed, a slap on the hand.

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Illegal.

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This is SEO Fucking What.

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I'm Nikki, 30 years in SEO, and today I'm gonna ruin your review strategy

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and then hand you a better one.

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Because most small businesses are doing this wrong.

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Not just slightly wrong.

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Wrong in a way that, in this country, now carries a fine.

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And the reason no one's told you is that most of what you read

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from the SEO industry is American, and this is a British problem

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with British law attached to it.

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So the small thing that got all the attention was that on the

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24th of July, Google updated its review snippet guidelines.

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That's the documentation covering the code on your website that produces those

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little star ratings in search results.

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They added one line.

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" Don't include fake or undisclosed incentivized reviews on your

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page or in your structured data markup." They gave two examples.

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Reviews not based on a genuine experience of the product or service,

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and reviews written in exchange for money, discounts, vouchers, or free

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products where the incentive isn't clearly and prominently disclosed.

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Now, where they put that line matters more than the line itself.

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It sits in the section that decides whether you're eligible for star

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ratings at all, which is the section where breaking the rules

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can earn you a manual action.

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And as predicted, the SEO industry lost its mind.

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There were blog posts and LinkedIn posts everywhere.

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Blah.

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Google cracks down.

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Urgent action required.

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Look, it's a documentation update.

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It's Google writing down something that was already true.

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If you're panicking about this specifically, you're panicking

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about the wrong thing entirely.

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Because this is the real problem, the thing that can actually fine you.

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Fake reviews have been illegal in the UK since the 6th of April, 2025.

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Not against the rules, not frowned upon, illegal.

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That's the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act.

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Under it, writing, commissioning, or submitting fake reviews, or

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helping someone else do it, is what's called automatically unfair,

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Which means nobody has to prove it influenced a single customer.

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Doing it is the offense.

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Concealed incentivized reviews are in there too.

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That's reviews that you paid for, discounted for, or gave something

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away for, where the customer reading it doesn't know that that happened.

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And not just the fake reviews.

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The act also covers publishing genuine reviews in a misleading way.

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Hold that thought, because that's the one that's gonna catch some of you.

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Here's the part that should make you sit up.

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The Competition and Markets Authority used to have to take a business to court,

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which took years and rarely went anywhere.

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Under this act, they don't.

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They can investigate, decide the law's been broken, order you to

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change it, and fine you themselves.

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And for a business, that fine is up to £300,000 or 10% of global annual

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turnover, whichever is bigger.

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For an individual, it's up to £150,000.

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That's the director who signed it off or the marketing person

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who set up the automated email.

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That's a person, not a company.

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And this isn't theoretical.

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In March this year, the CMA opened five investigations into fake and

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misleading reviews across funerals, food delivery, and car sales.

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So why does anyone care this much?

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because the CMA says that £23 billion of UK consumer spending every year

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is influenced by online reviews.

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£23 billion.

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That's why there's a law.

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Obviously, I'm an SEO, I'm not a lawyer.

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If any of the next bit sounds like you, go and read the CMA's own guidance.

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It's free.

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Or go and talk to someone with a legal qualification and a

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much duller job than mine.

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So let's talk about what this actually captures, because when I say fake

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reviews, you're probably picturing some bloke in a bedsit buying 500

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five-star ratings from a Facebook group and thinking, "Well, that's not me."

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But here's what is you.

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The discount for a review.

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Leave us a Google review and get 10% off your next order.

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Every business in Britain has done this.

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That's an incentivized review.

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It's legal, but only if the person reading it can clearly see the incentive existed.

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And burying that in your terms and conditions or in the small

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print of an email doesn't cut it.

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It has to be clear and prominent where the review appears.

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Review gating.

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This is a sneaky one.

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You send a message asking how it went, and if they say great,

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they get the Google link.

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And if they say the job was late and the invoice was wrong, they get an

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apology and a phone call instead.

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Loads of review software does this by default and sells it as a feature.

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That's against Google's rules on its own.

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And when you're deliberately filtering so only the good ones ever reach the

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public, you're publishing reviews in a way that gives a misleading

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impression, Which is a bit of the act that I told you to hold on to.

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Then we have your staff and your mates, your mum.

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Not a genuine customer experience.

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That's a fake review.

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I know your mum was only being supportive.

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It's still a fake review.

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we have testimonials on your own website that nobody can trace.

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"Great service. Highly recommended. JS, Manchester." Who?

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When?

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For what job?

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If you can't evidence that a real customer said that about a

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real piece of work, take it down.

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And if you've got a star rating code wrapped around testimonials

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you host and control yourself, that's a separate Google problem.

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Reviews you control about yourself aren't eligible for stars anyway.

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This one happens a lot, chasing the star average instead of the reviews.

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If you're deleting, hiding, or burying the bad ones to keep the number pretty, it's

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the same problem, Misleading presentation.

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So that's the bad news, and it's a fair bit of bad news.

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But in a minute I'm gonna give you the good news, which is that everything

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you're supposed to do instead works better than what you were doing anyway.

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Stay with me.

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Right.

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Here's how to get reviews legally, properly, and without bribing anyone.

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One, ask at the moment of maximum goodwill, not at the end of

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the month when you remember.

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On the day you solve the problem.

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The hour after they said, "Honestly, thank you. That's such a weight off."

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That's when people say yes.

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Two weeks later, they've forgotten and moved on

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Two, ask like a human, one at a time.

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The bulk automated request gets bulk ignored because everyone recognizes it.

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A short personal message from the person who did the work using their

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name, referencing the actual job, gets a response rate that will surprise you.

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Yes, it takes longer.

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You need 12 good reviews, not 400.

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You can find 12 minutes.

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Three, send them the direct link.

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Don't tell someone to search for you on Google and find the review button.

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They won't.

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Google Business Profile gives you a short review link.

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Grab it, save it somewhere, paste it into every request.

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One tap and they're in the box.

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Four, tell them what to write about.

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This is the one that changes everything and almost no one does it.

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"Please leave us a review" gets you a blank box and a blank mind,

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and if you're lucky, four words.

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Instead, ask a question.

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"Would you mind mentioning what the situation was before you called us?"

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If you could say a bit more about how long it took, that'd be really useful."

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Now they've got something to write about and you get a review that describes an

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actual problem being solved. which is the kind of review a future customer

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reads and thinks, "Oh, that's me.

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That's my exact situation."

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Five generic five-star reviews saying great service sell nothing.

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Five, ask everybody, not just the delighted ones.

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Ask the ones where it went fine.

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Ask the ones where it was a bit bumpy and you sorted it because a review that

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says there was a hiccup and they fixed it in a day is worth more than perfection.

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Nobody believes a flawless page of five stars.

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They believe 4.8 Six, if you're going to incentivize, disclose it properly.

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Best answer is don't.

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Don't incentivize.

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But if you're running a prize draw or offering a voucher, the disclosure

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of those where the review appears in plain words where a customer will

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see it, not in the terms, not in the footer, and you offer it whatever they

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write, not just for the nice ones.

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Seven, reply to all your reviews, including the bad ones.

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especially the bad ones.

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Not defensive, not an essay.

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Acknowledge it, say what you did about it, move on.

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future customers read your replies to work out what you're like when

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something goes wrong, which really is the thing they're worried about.

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And lastly, spread them out.

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Google Business Profile first because that's what shows up in search.

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Then LinkedIn recommendations if you're B2B because your buyers are on there,

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and a recommendation from a named person with a real job title carries

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more weight than an anonymous star.

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And then whatever platform your industry uses.

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The thing to take away, the legal route and the effective

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route are now the same route.

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A real review from a real customer describing a real problem outsells

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a bribed one every single time.

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You are never getting much out of the 10% discount anyway.

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If this was helpful, follow SEO Fucking What in whichever app you're listening

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in so the next one turns up on its own.

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And if you want to sort out the rest of your website while

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you're at it, my On-page SEO toolkit is now completely free.

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10 short lessons, no cost, no catch, nonwankyseo.com.

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Until next time, get found, make money, and go and ask a

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customer for a review right now.

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Not later, now