Buy Google reviews? Why a dental practice never should
Sites selling Google reviews rank for the search, and some practices are tempted. In the UK, buying reviews is now banned outright by consumer law, and Google has agreed with the regulator to flag businesses that do it.
Practice Radar shows a dental practice where it ranks against every practice nearby, and does the work to move up.
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Should a dental practice buy Google reviews? No. Since 6 April 2025, submitting or commissioning fake reviews, and hiding that a review was incentivised, has been a banned practice under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. Google's own policy prohibits paid reviews, Google has agreed with the Competition and Markets Authority to put warnings on the profiles of UK businesses caught using fake reviews, and for a dental practice there is a professional dimension too. The review sellers that rank for "buy Google reviews UK" do not mention any of this.
This guide explains what the law and Google say, what counts as buying a review (it is wider than most people think), what can happen, and the honest way to reach the review count you need.
Is buying Google reviews illegal in the UK?
Yes. The Act added fake reviews to the list of commercial practices that are always unfair. The CMA's fake reviews guidance (CMA208, published 4 April 2025) explains that the banned practice covers:
- submitting fake reviews, or commissioning someone else to write or submit them
- concealed incentivised reviews, where someone was rewarded for a review and that is not made clear
- publishing consumer reviews, or information derived from them such as star ratings, in a misleading way
- offering or facilitating services that do any of the above
A fake review is one that purports to be based on a genuine experience but is not. The ban covers positive and negative fake reviews, in any form.
The penalties are serious. Under its direct enforcement powers, the CMA says it can impose a penalty of up to 10% of a business's global turnover or £300,000, whichever is greater. The CMA's guidance on unfair commercial practices also says that engaging in banned practices can be a criminal offence, with penalties that can include a fine and up to two years' imprisonment.
Does the ban only apply to Google?
No. The CMA's guidance says the ban applies to fake reviews regardless of the form they take, whether text, speech or images, and whatever the medium, online or offline. That includes Facebook recommendations, other review sites and the testimonials on your own website.
Your own website has an extra obligation. If you publish reviews there, CMA208 says you must take reasonable and proportionate steps to prevent and remove fake and concealed incentivised reviews, and you must not publish reviews in a misleading way. In practice, that means not hand-picking only glowing comments while hiding critical ones, and not showing a star rating you cannot trace back to genuine reviews.
See this for your own town.
Every practice competing with yours on one map, sized by the share of local search each one holds, re-checked every week. The sample town shows the whole thing now, with no sign-up.
Run on our own practice first: ninth of the 14 practices measured in its town in May, first of 18 in September, on UK-wide search value. Page-one keywords: 6 in May, 194 in September.
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What counts as buying a review
Paying a website for a batch of five-star reviews is the obvious case. The CMA's guidance makes clear that "commissioning" a review is much broader than handing over money. Its examples of incentives include:
- money or commission
- discounts or vouchers
- free products or services
- invitations to events
It also gives the example of a trader asking a member of staff to write a review of the trader's product. In a practice, that means:
- No discount on the next hygiene visit for a review.
- No free whitening top-up in exchange for five stars.
- No reviews written by staff, or by friends and family at your request.
- No review swaps with other local businesses.
- No agency "review management" that writes reviews for you.
Prize draws are a grey area in the law. The CMA's guidance says entry into a prize draw that does not guarantee a benefit is unlikely to count as commissioning. Google's policy, below, is stricter, so do not run review prize draws either.
What Google's policy says
Google's policy on user-contributed content on Maps prohibits:
- content that is not based on a real experience
- reviews or ratings that have been paid for, directly or in kind
- content posted from multiple accounts by or at the request of one person
- merchants offering incentives, such as payment, discounts, free goods or services, in exchange for posting any review
- discouraging or prohibiting negative reviews, or selectively asking only happy customers for reviews
- content based on a conflict of interest, including current or former employment and family relationships
Note the second-to-last point. Sending review links only to patients you think are happy, sometimes called review gating, breaks Google's policy even if every review is genuine.
Does Google detect fake reviews?
Google has made specific commitments in the UK. In January 2025 the CMA announced it had secured undertakings from Google to tackle fake reviews. According to the CMA:
- UK businesses found to be boosting their star ratings with fake reviews will have prominent warning alerts added to their Google profiles, where their review scores are shown
- those businesses will have their review function deactivated, so they cannot receive new reviews
- firms that repeatedly engage in fake review activity will have all their reviews deleted for six months or more
- people who repeatedly post fake reviews for UK businesses will have their reviews deleted and be banned from posting
- consumers get an easier way to report suspicious reviews, including incentives offered in person
For a dental practice, a warning on your profile, frozen reviews or the loss of every review you have earned would undo years of work at the moment a patient is deciding whether to trust you.
The professional risk for dental practices
Beyond consumer law and Google, the GDC's Standards for the Dental Team say you must be honest and act with integrity, including in business activities, must not bring the profession into disrepute, and must make sure any promotional material is accurate and not misleading. The advertising code agrees: CAP Code rule 3.44 says marketing communications must not contain fake consumer reviews, and rule 3.46 covers publishing reviews in a misleading way, such as hiding negative ones.
Can you pay for 5-star reviews on Google?
No. Paying for reviews, directly or in kind, breaks Google's policy and UK law, whatever the star rating. There is no compliant way to buy five-star Google reviews.
How much is a Google review worth?
Nobody can put an honest price on one, but Google is clear that reviews matter. Its Business Profile help says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity, and that "more reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking". That is exactly why buying them is tempting, and exactly why regulators and Google now treat it so seriously.
How many reviews do you actually need?
Far fewer than the review sellers imply. In our study of 1,489 UK places on 13 September 2026, the median practice holding a place in the Google map pack had 113 reviews. The bottom tenth held a map place with 12 or fewer. The top tenth had 556. It also depends on how many practices compete in your town:
| Practices competing in the town | Median reviews of a map pack holder |
|---|---|
| 5 or fewer | 70 |
| 6 to 8 | 108 |
| 9 to 11 | 188 |
| 12 or more | 249 |
So "how to get 1,000 reviews on Google" is the wrong question for almost every practice. The right one is how many the three practices in your town's map pack have, and how long it will take you to get there honestly. Our guide to working out your review target walks through it, and Practice Radar's reviews race tracks those numbers for your own town every week.
How to get more reviews the honest way
- Ask every patient, not just the happy ones. Make it routine at the end of appointments, so it is never selective.
- Make it easy. A direct review link by text or email after the visit, and a QR code at reception.
- Ask at the same point for everyone. Straight after the appointment, while the experience is fresh, whether or not it seemed to go well.
- Offer nothing in return. Not a discount, not a prize, not a gift.
- Reply to reviews. Google recommends it, and thoughtful replies show future patients how you treat people. Our guide to replying to Google reviews covers what to say, including to negative ones.
- Keep going. A steady trickle every month builds a profile that looks and is genuine.
What if a competitor is buying reviews?
Report the reviews to Google through the reporting options on the profile. Under its undertakings, Google committed to a reporting function that lets people report concerning reviews and incentives. Keep a record of what you saw and when. Do not respond in kind. The practice that keeps earning genuine reviews is the one still standing when the warnings go up.
Know the real number to beat
Practice Radar's reviews race shows your review count against the practices holding the map in your town, re-checked every week, so you can set an honest target and track it.
Run on our own practice first: ninth of the 14 practices measured in its town in May, first of 18 in September, on UK-wide search value. Page-one keywords: 6 in May, 194 in September.
Thirty days free. No card, and nothing starts automatically when it ends.