Google recently announced new updates to their review policy and small businesses NEED to hear about this.
Vivian and I are discussing what’s changed in the review policy, how Google is cracking down on rule breakers, AND what businesses can still do to collect reviews without getting any taken down by Google. (Which they have been doing!)
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Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to SOB Marketing
01:07 Introduction to Google Reviews Update
06:53 Understanding the New Policies
19:21 Review Gating Explained
29:16 Who Can Leave You a Review
30:43 Recap of Key Google Review Policy Changes
36:27 TLDL; What Small Businesses Need to Know about Google’s Review Policy Changes
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Vivian: Oh! Is this kind of like...what was that gate we had?
Chelsea: ....... You're going to have to give me more than that.
Vivian: The political gate from a long time ago.
Chelsea: Watergate?!
Vivian: Yes! Watergate.
Chelsea: Oh my god.
*Intro*
Chelsea: Hey everyone and welcome to the S.O.B. Marketing podcast. Where we celebrate to S.O.B. you are, and if you haven't figured it out yet - we mean Small Owned Business, we don't mean S.O.B...
Vivian: Listen, we know that as a small business owner you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.
Chelsea: Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, and promoting your business. And then what doesn't really work.
Vivian: And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.
*Beginning of Episode*
Chelsea: Vivian, I am so heated.
Vivian: Heated Rivalry?
Chelsea: Well, I mean, I could talk about Heated Rivalry all day, but no, I'm so heated about this topic today. Google and I have beef.
Vivian: I should have brought you my can of beef that I have. I have corned beef over there in the corner.
Chelsea: Perfect, what, am I going to throw it at Google?
Vivian: Yes.
Chelsea: Okay.
Y'all, today we are talking about Google reviews and specifically the latest update from Google about their reviews policy.
Vivian: Yeah. So to Chelsea's point, just to explain how important this conversation is going to be today, if you're a small business owner that collects reviews because you understand how important those are to the Google search engine, you are probably doing it wrong.
I hate to tell you and come out swinging like that, but they've changed the rules so drastically that I think it's going to be a big shakeup for a lot of small business owners. That's what we're going to be talking about today.
Chelsea: Yes. We're going to go through, Vivian, all of the changes, and then we're going to talk about how it impacts small businesses and what you can still do to collect reviews because unfortunately you can't just stop collecting reviews. You still need those.
Vivian: No, you definitely, we do not want to deter you from collecting them. We just want you to follow the rules because remember, we are not outlaws around here. I mean, sometimes we're outlaws, but yeah.
Chelsea: Maybe a little bit.
Vivian: I do want to give a timeline though, because I don't want you guys to freak out when you're listening to this and be like, How long have I been doing the wrong thing? No, it's nothing like that. The actual update that Google made started when, Chelsea? April?
Chelsea: April.
Vivian: April of this year. We are recording, we're going to release this episode in June of 2026. If you have not heard about this, it's because it literally just happened.
Chelsea: Yeah, it just happened. We didn't bring this in sooner because sometimes Google makes policies and then they don't follow through on them. So we just wanted to see like what what's actually going on? Are they being serious? Are they being for real? And the answer is they are.
Vivian: Yes, they are.
Chelsea: They are being serious.
Vivian: What's interesting when I was kind of looking through these notes and stuff is Google is being a little bit of a sneaky Pete and they did an update, but then they rolled out this other thing within the update and didn't really like come out and and say it. That's why you may be feeling like this is the first that you've heard of it because it's been a little quiet.
So, Chelsea, do you have a hot take? Was your hot take just that you're beefing with Google again? You're beefing with everybody.
Chelsea: I am beefing with everybody, okay? Yes, my hot take actually is that I have a problem with this update. The update comes from a good place. I understand what Google is trying to do. You know, we're trying to cut down on spam reviews, on those fake, illegitimate reviews because reviews are how people decide to make purchases. So I understand the thought process behind these policy updates, Vivian. You're really tying small businesses' hands. You're really tying all businesses' hands because some of these updates are kind of insane.
Vivian: Yeah, they're going to be a little harder to navigate. The good thing, there are two things that I think stood out to me that I will say I think are good for small business owners with this update. Number one, if you've been doing it I don't want to say right, but if you've you've been allowing people to leave reviews on their own accordance, you're going to be in the clear and you'll see why when we go through these updates. Then the second thing is there have been a lot of circumstances where I have seen small businesses get canceled. So something is posted on TikTok, everyone is like raging about it and they're like the one way we know we can hurt this business and make them quote unquote pay for the thing that they did is to go and leave them a bad review. Even though the person has never set foot in the business. What you would see is a lot of people, like hundreds of reviews coming into a small business of people that have never been to the business, this prevents that. We'll get into it specifically what update it is that falls under that. But I do think there are some advantages to small business owners. So where shall we start?
Chelsea: Let's first talk about the fact that Google is being serious about these updates. They are actually pulling reviews right now. They are taking down reviews. So if you listen to this episode and you go, I don't really need to change anything. It'll be fine. Watch out because Google might take down your reviews.
Vivian: Yeah, and we'll have some recommendations. I have about five specific things at the end of this conversation that I want to leave you with. But what I would say for right now is go in there and just look at your Google business profile, see how many reviews you have. So that way you're able to clock it and know if any of them have gotten taken down.
Chelsea: Absolutely, and also just for transparency, Google is using AI to flag reviews. Just so you know. Okay. Now let's talk about policies, Vivian. Which one do you want to start with?
Vivian: Let's go ahead and ooh, my voice cracked there. Sorry you guys. Puberty. Let's go ahead and talk about one of the things that we often see is small businesses, they knew that reviews were important and they knew that the quantity, and we always say this, right? We use restaurants as an example. We're like, are we going to go to the restaurant that has two five-star reviews or are we going to go to the restaurant that has a hundred like four point eight star reviews? Okay. Quantity does matter when it comes to Google reviews. One of the ways small businesses were getting their staff motivated to increase these reviews is what, Chelsea?
Chelsea: Well, for one, they were using review quotas and incentives for their staff.
Vivian: What does that look like? Give us an example.
Chelsea: Okay, a great example would be for the month of May the staff member with the highest amount of reviews that mention their name will get a hundred dollar bonus or something like that.
Vivian: Right. Then as an employee, let's say I'm a waiter, a waitress, I work at an ice cream shop. What I would do is then say...
Chelsea: I'm loving this background for you.
Vivian: What? Like an ice cream shop?
Chelsea: A waitress at an ice cream shop. I didn't know ice cream shops had waitresses.
Vivian: I mean maybe it's like the nineteen fifties old school milkshake counter. You know what I mean?
Chelsea: Okay, I you.
Vivian: Like a drive in type thing.
Chelsea: Yeah, you got skates on.
Vivian: I have skates on. Okay. Let's say that's me. What I would do is when I would roll up next to the car and deliver their french fries and milkshake. Which I would encourage them to dunk the french fries into the milkshake. You know, like a frosty. But I would then, because I want to get that hundred dollar extra bonus gift card or whatever at the end of the month, I would say, hey, by the way, my name is Vivian. Leave us a review and include my name in it. So what rule then? It's kind of two rules that we're breaking right now if that's what we're doing, incentivizing employees.
Chelsea: Yeah. One, incentivizing employees, no review quotas. So like you can't say we need to make this amount of reviews by the end of the month. I want to point something out. When I was doing research on this episode, a lot of the examples were saying no one would ever list a first and a last name of an employee. That's what they're looking for. If you list both the first and last name, they're like, that's gotta be a coerced review. Because why would you know the last name of a waitress? So I am not sure if it is that you can't mention an employee's name, period, or if it is that you can't mention their first and last name.
Vivian: No, no, no. I'll tell you what I saw when I was looking into this.
Chelsea: But real quick, the policy is that you cannot mention staff's names.
Vivian: Yes. What they're wanting, let me just use this phrase now because this is a phrase in my notes that I had that I want people to get used to. The phrase you want to remember with all of these when it comes to Google reviews is "ask everyone, influence no one". So the key to that is you cannot, they will look at the verbiage, the words in the Google reviews. If you mention the person's name, what they're looking for is a case where maybe you're saying, we stopped by the restaurant, the milkshakes were perfect, we appreciated our waitress Susan, and we had a great time or whatever. That is a legit thing that a person would say. What a person would not say is something very scripted where it was like...
Chelsea: Vivian Walton is a great skater. Waitress.
Vivian: Vivian Walton is the best skater waitress ever. Go see Vivian Walton. You know what I'm saying? It's more of a pitch to a person that's reading the review. They want it to be an honest review of an experience that somebody had with your business. If it in any way looks scripted and if they see that the same phrase is being used over and over and over again, "Vivian Walton is a great skater, go ask for her by name. Vivian Walton's a great skater, go ask for her by name". They could kind of put one and one together. One and two, one and one. They can put one and one together.
Chelsea: They can figure it out.
Vivian: They can figure it out to say, Vivian Walton is encouraging every customer that she has to leave the same verbiage on the review.
Chelsea: Yes. Push back a little bit, and just say, how good is Google's AI? That they're going to see Vivian in a review and be able to tell that the verbiage is natural. I just have, I just have beef with AI, I guess. I just don't know how well this will work.
Vivian: So what you're saying is you would just prefer people steered cleared of naming names in Google reviews.
Chelsea: See, but that's the other thing too, because that's not fair to servers.
Vivian: Yeah, and that's what I'm saying is I think that it's okay if it sounds like it's an honest review from a person. Remember what I said is...
Chelsea: I'm just being too paranoid, y'all.
Vivian: Yeah. Ask everyone, influence no one. They just want to be sure that the customer is in no way influenced by you or your employees to leave a certain type of review.
Chelsea: Going back to you're no longer able to incentivize your employees, you can no longer have review quotas. I understand, and that's totally fair, because again, we want to ask everybody. We're not trying to push, we're trying to be respectful and get legitimate reviews. I get that. It's going to be hard to incentivize your staff to say, hey, leave us a review if they're not getting anything out of it.
Vivian: No, I'm going to push back on that. You want to know why? Because it is a part of their duty and responsibility. So here's the thing. Small business owner, it is no longer an option for you to ask for reviews. A best practice for a small business owner if you have a Google business profile or even if you have Apple Maps, is going to be to say, hey, would you mind leaving us a review?
Chelsea: Yeah. Which you should have Apple Maps too.
Vivian: The other key thing to this is why also as a small business owner, would you maybe leave that to the employee? I mean your employees can reinforce that, right? Or encourage people and just say, hey, by the way, leave us a review, right. But why would you not automate it?
Chelsea: That's a great point.
Vivian: With the tools that we have out there available that are pretty low cost, your POS system probably has an extension where you could text people a link or just text someone the next day or within like 10 minutes of them leaving your shop to say, Hey, don't forget to leave us a review. Right?
Chelsea: Yes. I'm glad that you brought that up because Vivian, that reminds me of one of these new policies. You're no longer allowed to ask customers to leave a review while on site. The while on site is important. So they're not saying you can't ask people for reviews. You absolutely can. You just can't set it up so that they leave the review while they're still in your storefront.
Vivian: All right. So example of this. If you are a dental office and when the person goes to check out of their appointment, you have an iPad or some type of a tablet next to the checkout. They're setting their future appointment for the next visit. Then you say, Hey, go ahead and use that tablet to leave us a review. Not allowed.
Chelsea: Not allowed.
Vivian: Yes. So you still can, and we would encourage you to still have your staff member, your front desk staff, or whoever's checking them out to say, hey, by the way, don't forget to leave us a review. But you can't be asking them to do it right then and there. Now, to your point, when you've said, How serious is Google about this? Could they really track-
Chelsea: Oh they absolutely can track this one.
Vivian: You guys, by your IP address. All right. So Google has even said they will be looking at that type of information. So if all of your Google reviews that you are currently getting for your small business on your Google business profile is coming from the same IP address, they're going to take those reviews down.
Chelsea: That's a problem. But again, you can still ask people for reviews. You can absolutely automate it. Just make sure it's automated for 10 minutes later, or an hour later, the next day, something like that.
Vivian: Or let's use that same example of a dental office. If let's say you have these appointment card reminders for people. You have your staff write their future appointment date and time, on the back of it or in the corner of the card, put a QR code that links directly to your Google Business Profile review link. All right. Then when they're handing that appointment card to them, you're still allowed to hand them something, whether it's a receipt, whether it's a flyer, whether it's an appointment card that has something they can scan to leave you the review. The thing is, you're not asking them to do it right then and there. It's something they are taking with them. They could do it in the car, they could do it when they get home, they could do it, you know, at the ballpark, wherever they're at. You're not telling them do it right here, right now, because remember they want you to ask everyone, influence no one. The reason they're saying this is they think that if you are prompting people to leave the review right in front of them and this is your dentist, are you really going to tell him that he was shitty at his job?
Chelsea: Well, and that's the thing. They are absolutely correct on this. You know, an example, restaurants. I've been to a restaurant where we're checking out, like, you know, they have the hand held card things now.
Vivian: I hate that. Especially for tips.
Chelsea: I know it's so awkward. Well, I mean, I'm a good tipper, y'all. Don't come after me. The waiter was checking us out and then slid a QR code that said leave us a review and then was just there while we left the reviews. See, that's influencing.
Vivian: That's influencing. That not just giving someone the opportunity to leave the review when they want, say what they want. It's almost like you're bullying them into leaving them a good review.
Chelsea: I was thinking about using the word coercion, but then I was like, that's kind of strong.
Vivian: You're blackmailing.
Chelsea: We could have said no. I could have said no. But also it was a good experience. So I was fine with it. But that's still, you're right. That's still influencing.
Vivian: That's right. So what's another update that Google has had?
Chelsea: Vivian, let's talk about the, in my opinion, the biggest one. Let's talk about review gating.
Vivian: Is this kind of like...what was that gate that we had?
Chelsea: You're going to have to give me more than that.
Vivian: The political gate from a long time ago.
Chelsea: WaterGate?
Vivian: Yes, WaterGate. This is review gate.
Chelsea: Review gate. No, review gating. So, Vivian, what review gating is, is when you send out a feedback link. You're not sending out the review link yet. You're sending out a feedback link, and you say, hey, how was your experience? If the person was like, this was so amazing. Vivian is so great on her skates and she brought me my fries and showed me how to dip them into my milkshake. Then the business in question would send them the review link to leave a review. But let's say they send the feedback link and I say, my God, Vivian was the worst. She cannot skate and she spilled my milkshake all over me and didn't even do anything about it. She was awful.
Vivian: Ate my French fries.
Chelsea: Ate my French fries in front of me. Then the business would send them a private feedback conversation, hey, let's fix this. But they don't send them the review link. What was the phrase you just said, Vivian?
Vivian: Ask everyone, influence no one.
Chelsea: Ask everyone. Yeah. So the problem here is that the person that had the negative experience didn't get sent a review link. That's not okay. You don't get to pick and choose who leaves a review.
Vivian: Yeah. So what businesses were doing is it was like they had their own filter. Listen, we get it, and this is what I was talking about, which is when we had the conversation, remember at the beginning I told you guys if you've been doing it the right way, you're not going to, none of this is going to impact you, right? If you have been asking everybody, if you have just been saying, hey, reminder, leave us a review. Not telling them what to say, not picking and choosing who to say that to. If you've just been asking everyone, influencing no one, you're not going to have a problem. Now, if you have figured out, you're like, I know the rules, and we love this for you business owners, you guys are geniuses. You figure out a way to have the rules work in your favor, and we love that. Especially when it comes to taxes. But we love that. The thing is, you can't do that any longer. If you have been using, let's say, Bird Eye, this is the other thing. If you've been l using a business to help you collect reviews, connect with them and ask them and be sure that you are not doing any of these no-nos, okay? That you're not complicit through that because Bird Eye is one of the ones that was doing the review gating, as Chelsea said.
Chelsea: Yes. That was their main selling point.
Vivian: Yes. So what they would do is they would send a customer that just left your business a questionnaire. In that questionnaire, it would collect information on how happy they were with the service they received. If you were not happy, they wouldn't send you the Google review. They would say, call us at or how can we reach you? Give me your phone number, right? Then they would have someone from the business call to try to do service recovery. So it wasn't malicious, and it was within the scope at the time that Google was allowing. Then anyone that was happy, right, from that feedback form, this person had great experience, send them the Google review. That's just not that, yeah.
Chelsea: That not okay anymore. I did some research, Vivian, because again, that that was BirdEye's main selling point. So I wanted to know what was going on.
Vivian: They charged people a lot of money for this.
Chelsea: Exactly. Well, BirdEye's expensive. So I was reading an article from BirdEye, and they were saying, and I quote, "BirdEye does not allow review gating". So according to the article, they don't do that anymore. They send the first survey, "how was your experience", and then they send everyone the review link.
Vivian: So regardless of how they respond.
Chelsea: Regardless of how you respond, you're still getting a review link.
Vivian: Well, and I guess maybe that's a good approach because for one, they're sending it to everyone, so they're not filtering who gets it. But if you think about it, let's say that you do get the feedback form, right? So the first thing is that feedback form, you get it as a small business owner, there's a small opportunity or window of time where maybe you have a chance to call the customer that's not happy and they still haven't left you a review. Or if let's say they left you a review, you fix their problem though, they may go back and edit the review.
Chelsea: Yes. That's something else that we need to talk about. You cannot incentivize people to leave reviews. You can also not incentivize them to change their reviews, and I think that is a pretty big deal because that is something that I feel like a lot of businesses do. So incentivizing, one that was technically never allowed. However, people were still doing it. Google is actually going to start cracking down on this. They announced that they are serious about this. So don't incentivize people, Vivian. What that means is like don't say, give me an example. I'm sorry.
Vivian: Let's say if you got a one star review from somebody and you reached out to them because you have their contact information and you're like, hey, by the way, you had a bad experience, we can do this and this for you and we can give you a discount, give you some of your money back we would just need you to change the review. You can't say, hey, you left us a bad review. Let us fix it, and by the way, we're going to give you something in return if you go back in and change. It can't be contingent on them changing the review.
Chelsea: Also just incentives in general. An example?
Vivian: Incentives in general, leave us a review, get a 10% discount. No, no, no, no, no. You're not supposed to be doing that. Just the same way you're not supposed to be incentivizing your staff members to get the reviews. Anything like that, you guys, it's just and I know it seems like you're probably thinking, well, then how am I going to get people to leave a review?
Chelsea: I know.
Vivian: Okay, figure out a way to do it without giving them a discount, without giving them a freebie, because actually, that rule was one of the first that Google did. Lots of businesses were doing it, even though Google had said years ago you weren't supposed to be doing it. You weren't. Unfortunately, now they have AI tools at Google that will be able to identify these things, right? Just be cautious of that. The other thing that I want to mention...
Chelsea: Be cautious, don't do it.
Vivian: Yeah, don't do it. The other thing I want to mention as well is remember when I had talked about it being a benefit to small business owners that let's say something happens, a bunch of people who have never been to your business end up leaving you a review and it's just them trying to get back at you for something that they think you did wrong, it's going to flag, Google's going to flag them and it's going to go in and delete them. Great. That's a good benefit to you. The downside also means though that if you don't ever ask for Google reviews throughout the year and let's say in June, you suddenly are like, you know what? I'm just going to email all of my past customers and ask them to leave me a review. It works so well that then you get a hundred Google reviews in like two days. Great. It's also going to flag the same system and they're going to take it down.
Best practices. We just want you guys to do this in a healthy way. The healthy way to do that is what's our phrase? Ask everyone...
Chelsea: Ask everyone...
Vivian: Influence...
Chelsea: Influence no one. I'm sorry. I do listen to Vivian.
Vivian: Ask everyone, influence no one and do this all the time. Automate it if you can't. That way you're not thinking or playing catch up and saying, my gosh, we forgot, our team members have been forgetting to remind people to leave us a Google review. It's just if you do it steadily as you should be doing it, best practice, then you're not going to have to come in and worry about half of this stuff.
Chelsea: Yeah, all of these changes.
*S.O.B. Community Ad*
Vivian: This episode of the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is brought to you by the S.O.B. Community. If you are a small business owner that is neglecting your marketing and you feel like you've wasted time and money on marketing help that didn't deliver. Or if you're just craving support from people who actually get what it's like to run and promote a small business, then our membership community is for you. Visit skool.com/sob to sign up today to get instant access and weekly support. That's S-K-O-O-L dot com slash sob.
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Chelsea: Vivian, another policy that Google has always had, but they're cracking down now because it's been a problem, is you cannot have reviews from employees or family or contractors, people who have like the inside scoop or knowledge about your business. So the problem is are they legitimate...not employees. I almost said employees. Are they legitimate customers? You know?
Vivian: Exactly. So remember the purpose of a review is to share with somebody an experience that you had. That the customer had. Like we said, if they think that you're getting reviews and the person has not actually experienced the thing, they're not referring to a very specific experience. Then it's going to flag it.
Chelsea: Exactly. Again, this was always a policy, but Google is actually cracking down on this now. All of these updates, all of these policies, Google is taking seriously. When I was doing research on this, I found so many forums of unfortunately business owners going, why are all my reviews gone? It's because Google's deleting the ones that don't follow these policies.
Vivian: Well, so can we do a recap of the five main things that Google updated?
Chelsea: Okay, go ahead.
Vivian: Yes. The recap is: asking for reviews while customers are still on your premise. Using review kiosk or tablets at your front desk. Setting staff review quotas. Asking customers to mention specific names or services, and then review gating.
What's interesting is we've talked a whole lot about what you're not allowed to do. Let me also just remind you of what is still allowed.
Chelsea: Okay. Let's hear it.
Vivian: Sending up a follow-up text or an email after a visit. Check, check, check. You're allowed to do that.
Chelsea: Absolutely, and you should be doing that. That's the easiest way to stay consistent.
Vivian: So you're also allowed to still have signs with a QR code linking to your review page. If you put these on your receipt or you put them on a tabletop thing, whatever it is, you're still allowed to do that. Asking a customer to leave a review. It's still allowed.
Chelsea: Yes! You can still ask people for reviews. You gotta ask everyone.
Vivian: That's right, and don't say you're going to give them a discount for leaving a review.
Chelsea: Don't incentivize them.
Vivian: That's right.
Chelsea: Just say pretty please.
Vivian: So then there are some things, let's say, Chelsea, that we can encourage people to do if you're right here and now you're hearing this for the first time. There are a couple things we want you to do.
Chelsea: Let's hear it.
Vivian: The first one we mentioned earlier, which is we want you to kind of know what your review count is because we want you to see if Google is going to delete.
Chelsea: If they're removing some of your reviews.
Vivian: Yes, because the reason we want you to do that, if you notice that a particular type of review is being deleted, that's going to be a trigger for you to know, let me not collect reviews that way.
Chelsea: Exactly.
Vivian: Maybe that's because you are asking them to say, Vivian is the best skater. If you're asking them for a specific phrase or to leave a specific name on there, they're going to flag them. The other thing is we want you to go in and just audit what you're doing. Okay, look at the templates you're using, if you're using a text template, an email template, something that's automated to ask for a review. Just be sure that your phrasing on these templates are good and that you're not saying, hey, leave us a review right now. Use this phrase and we'll give you 10% off your next visit.
Chelsea: All of it's wrong. All of that is wrong.
Vivian: All of that's wrong. So don't be doing that. The other thing is just look around your place of business. Are you encouraging people? Do you have a tablet? Do you have kiosk? That you're asking them to leave the reviews right then and there. We also want you just-
Chelsea: Don't do that. Just clarifying, don't do any of that.
Vivian: Don't do it. Then the other thing, common sense, you guys. Go on your Google Business Review or Business Profile and you can actually set up notifications. Just be sure that your notifications are set up. That way if something gets flagged, if something gets taken down, every time you receive a new review, you know. You're getting that information sent to your phone. So that way you can keep it top of mind. Because remember, like we said, we want you guys to do best practices. Be a healthy business, be a good business owner, and be asking for reviews always.
Chelsea: Always.
Vivian: Always.
Chelsea: Everyone, always.
Vivian: Yes, the right way.
Chelsea: All the time. What is it? Everywhere, always, all the time. That's not right.
Vivian: I don't know. I don't know what that is.
Chelsea: In the comments, tell me what I'm thinking of and tell me how it's phrased. Because that was wrong. Vivian, multiple things.
One, like Vivian said earlier, if you are a small business owner that was already doing this the right way, you're fine. You'll be fine. Just keep doing what you're doing. One. Two, I'm glad we had this conversation, because I'd like to go back to my hot take and say I was being dramatic.
Vivian: We're all shocked. Chelsea, dramatic?
Chelsea: Me, dramatic? No, these policies when you sit down and actually think about them, actually review them, listen to this conversation, they're not bad. They're just trying to make sure that- what's important to Google is their customers. It's the people who are searching for things. So they don't want them looking at fake reviews. They want legitimate reviews for people to be able to look at.
Vivian: You should want that as a small business owner. You should want that because you want your reviews to always be an accurate depiction of what's going on. I know that could be tough sometimes because, you know, depending on if you have an employee that's not exactly delivering the best customer service or maybe this and that. But those are gauges for you to be able to, it's feedback for you to be able to go in and actually change and fix the problem.
Chelsea: Fix the problem. Yeah. Well, I'm glad we had this conversation then. I'm sorry, Google.
Vivian: She takes her spam back.
Chelsea: Yeah. I take my beef back. Let me just go get that can that I threw at you. I'm sorry. It was in the heat of the moment.
Vivian: All right, do you have a TLDL?
Chelsea: I do have a TLDL, and I wrote it down because I feel like this conversation was not a lot, but I wanted to make sure I didn't forget anything in this TLDL. Okay.
Too long, didn't listen. You can skip ahead to this chapter. I'm going to give you a brief summary of what we talked about today. You need to listen to this entire conversation because one, it'll make more sense, and two, you probably will hate Google less after hearing all of the reasoning behind this.
So Google has updated their reviews policy and it will impact how you ask for reviews. Google is not playing around. They are actually about what they say they're about, and they are taking down reviews that go against their new policies. So you need to hear what these new policies are. Important changes to note, just real quick, you can't prompt someone to leave a review in your storefront. No asking them to leave staff names, no incentives, no review gating. If you want to know what all that means, and some of the other smaller policy changes, you need to listen to this whole episode because this is important information.
Vivian: Yeah, and we just want to remind you guys, go ahead and hit that subscribe button if you haven't already, because we love having these marketing conversations with you and we want you to be a responsible business owner that stays on top of their marketing, okay? This is this is the way to go, little grasshopper. So follow us.
Chelsea: What's that from?
Vivian: I don't know.
Chelsea: Oh okay. I thought maybe it was like Pinocchio or something.
Vivian: I mean, does Pinocchio have a grasshopper?
Chelsea: Oh my god, no, that's a cricket. I'm sorry, y'all. Please leave us a review. Subscribe, leave us a legitimate review and go be the best SOB you can be.