GMB's "Get messages from customers" link is a trap!

[CaribouFondue]

In Google My Business you have the option to generate a link to share with your customers so that they can leave you reviews, it looks like this:

An example of a generated link from this form is this:

https://g.page/r/CWrE1V2G-kKCEAg/review

It seems to me that this would be a great way for google to track which reviews come from customers who have been told to write a review of your business.
It seems to me that google would use this as a way to filter out certain reviews as being inauthentic or dishonest, and that they would put more value in reviews that come from a more natural pathway; for example a user goes to google.com, searches for the business, and then clicks on the review button and leaves a review.

Am I right or am I left?

N.B. I am fully aware that Yelp for example does in fact treat reviews which come from direct traffic (no referrer from google) as garbage and discounts them.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Unlike Yelp, Google is totally fine with business owners soliciting reviews as long as they don't incentivize. So I don't think this link, in and of itself, would be contributing towards reviews getting filtered.

 

[CaribouFondue]

Unlike Yelp, Google is totally fine with business owners soliciting reviews as long as they don't incentivize. So I don't think this link, in and of itself, would be contributing towards reviews getting filtered.

Sounds exactly like what a person who is affiliated with google would want you to think...

 

[djbaxter]

Sounds exactly like what a person who is affiliated with google would want you to think...

Are you saying it's not correct? What would the "truth" from Google actually look like?

 

[WilliamGMBE]

@CaribouFondue @djbaxter

It is ok to request Google Review, unlike Yelp or some other platform. You can view the policy here: Get Google reviews - Google Business Profile Help. In fact, it mentions here in the link that it is ok to share link to solicit reviews.

Some grey area includes asking incentivizing customers or sometimes using a review pre-screening platform when asking for reviews. You might like this case study by Ranking Academy here:

If you still have concerns, I would suggest not using short url that Google provides. You can create the direct url using this formula: https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=[place id]. This will also take you directly to the Google review request page.

You can also find this directly review link using the basic audit functionality of GMB Everywhere chrome extension.