Google's review policies are documented and consistent: paid reviews are prohibited, gating reviews by sentiment is prohibited, and bursts of reviews from sources unfamiliar to the algorithm are scrutinised. The 2024 update to Google's Business Profile review guidelines reinforced this language.
Source: Book the call.
Why steady acquisition outperforms bursts
Three documented mechanics back this up:
- Recency weighting. The local algorithm gives more weight to recent reviews. A profile collecting one or two reviews a week always has 'recent' content. A profile that collected thirty in one fortnight then went silent does not.
- Velocity anomaly detection. Sudden spikes from new accounts can trigger Google's review filters, which can hide reviews from public view and reduce the prominence signal. Whitespark and BrightLocal have both written publicly about this pattern.
- Activity signal. Steady acquisition reads as an active business. Inactivity reads as the opposite.
Source: Whitespark Local Search Ranking Factors learning resources; BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey.
A weekly review request system
1. Pick the right customer every Friday
The customer who said something genuine during the job. Not the most recent. Not the biggest invoice. The right customer asked at the right moment converts at a much higher rate than mass review pushes.
2. Personal message, not a template
A short text or email with the customer's first name and a one line reference to the actual job they had done tends to outperform copy and pasted templates by a wide margin.
3. Direct link, no extra clicks
Use the share link from inside Google Business Profile that goes straight to the review form. Anything that requires more than two taps loses the customer.
4. Reply to every review within 48 hours
Replying signals an engaged business. Replying with the suburb name and the service mentioned tends to support local ranking for those terms.
Source: Google Business Profile Help, Read and reply to reviews.
The maths
One review per week is 52 reviews a year, all collected at a velocity that reads as healthy by the algorithm. Compounded over two or three years that builds a profile that sits comfortably ahead of competitors who run the burst pattern.
If you want a script tailored to your business and a way to remind yourself weekly, the strategy call covers it.
Edited by a human.