Review gating: why filtering out unhappy customers will cost you everything

Review gating is when you ask customers how their experience was first, and only the happy ones get sent to Google. Plenty of software sells this as a feature. It has been a direct violation of Google's review policy since 2018, and Google has gotten steadily better at detecting it.

The penalty isn't a slap on the wrist. Google can remove reviews it believes were gated — or wipe your review history entirely. Years of reputation, gone, because a tool quietly filtered your customers. And the unhappy customer you filtered? They still find somewhere to post.

The right way is simpler and safer: everyone gets the same ask, and problems reach you because you asked fast and paid attention — not because you hid them. That's how our system works, and the free assessment will tell you whether your current setup has gating risk baked in.