How to get more Google reviews as a real estate agent in India
Google's own policy is specific about what's banned — incentives, review gating, staff-name prompts. Here's what it actually says, and what's left that still works.
Photo: Ketut Subiyanto / Pexels
Can I offer a discount or gift for a review?
No. Google's own policy explicitly bans offering payment, discounts, free goods, or any other incentive in exchange for a review — or for revising or removing a negative one. This isn't a soft guideline; Google names it directly as prohibited content, and a business caught doing it can have its reviews unpublished or lose the ability to receive new ones for a set period.
What is review gating, and why is it banned?
Review gating is asking a client how their experience went before deciding whether to send them a public review link — routing happy clients to Google and unhappy ones to a private feedback form instead. Google bans it because it produces a rating that's been filtered to look better than the real spread of experiences. The fix is simple: send the same review link to everyone, regardless of how the conversation with them went.
Can I ask a buyer to mention my name in their review?
Not anymore. Google's April 2026 policy update specifically prohibits asking a reviewer to name a particular staff member or include scripted content. The safer version is an open prompt — "share your experience" — rather than "please mention how quickly I responded" or similar. Let the reviewer write what they actually want to say.
Banned
- Paying, discounting, or gifting for a review
- Review gating (sentiment pre-screening)
- Asking to name a specific staff member
- Offering anything to edit/remove a bad review
Allowed
- Asking every client, the same way, every time
- Sending a direct link to your profile
- Timing the ask right after a good outcome
- Responding publicly to reviews, good or bad
So what actually works?
Asking every client for a review, using the same open-ended request each time, and sending a direct link to your Google Business Profile. Timing matters more than wording — the best moment is right after a genuinely good interaction (a closed deal, a concern that got resolved), not weeks later when the details have faded and the ask feels random. Responding to the reviews you do get, including critical ones, is allowed and does more for credibility than chasing raw volume.
This isn't legal advice. It's a plain read of Google's published policy as of writing. Google updates these rules on its own schedule — check Google's own current policy page before relying on anything here for a real decision.
Sources
- Google Business Profile Help — Prohibited and restricted content (official policy)
- Birdeye — Google review policy in 2026 (summary of the April 2026 update)