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Definition

Review gating

Screening customers first and asking only the happy ones for a public review, a practice Google's review policies prohibit.

Review gating means sending a private satisfaction check first and inviting only the customers who answer positively to leave a public review, while routing unhappy customers elsewhere. It inflates ratings by filtering who gets asked.

Google treats selective solicitation as fake engagement, and reviews obtained this way can be removed. The compliant approach is to ask every customer the same way and respond to whatever comes back.

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