What is review gating? The rules from Google, Tripadvisor and the CMA

Review gating means asking only happy guests to post a public review, while unhappy guests are steered somewhere private. It can look like good service recovery, but Google, Tripadvisor and Trustpilot all prohibit it, and the UK's competition regulator says encouraging only satisfied customers to review can amount to cherry-picking. Here is what each set of rules says, as of September 2026, and how to ask for reviews in a way that holds up.

What review gating is

Most gating starts with one question. A QR code on a table card opens a page asking how the visit was, and what happens next depends on the answer:

1. The guest taps four or five stars. The page thanks them and sends them straight to your Google or Tripadvisor profile.
2. The guest taps one, two or three stars. The page apologises and opens a private complaint form. There is no public review link anywhere on the screen.

The result is that your public rating only hears from guests who were already pleased.

Gating doesn't need software. It also happens when:

• staff hand review cards only to tables that seem happy
• the post-stay email with a review link goes only to guests who scored you 9 or 10 in a survey
• review requests are paused after a bad week and switched back on when things improve

A related practice that the same rules ban is leading wording, which tells guests the rating you want, such as "If you loved your stay, please give us five stars". Google treats this as trying to influence the rating, and Trustpilot lists it as a separate don't.

What Google's policy says

Google's Maps content policy says rating manipulation, which includes biased reviews, is not allowed and will be removed from Maps. The things it says merchants must not do include discouraging or prohibiting negative reviews, and asking selectively for positive ones. The same section says businesses should not require or pressure guests to review while they are on the premises. It also rules out giving staff review quotas, and asking for particular content, such as a review that names a member of staff.

What Google does allow is asking customers to share a genuine experience, as long as you offer no incentive and don't try to influence the rating or what the review says. Its tips for getting more reviews add that a mix of positive and negative reviews often comes across as more trustworthy.

Tripadvisor's identical-experience rule

Tripadvisor is the most explicit. Its review guidelines name review gating as a banned practice. It prohibits selectively asking for positive content, and rejecting moderate or negative content. It says breaches of its guidelines can lead to ranking penalties, red badges on the listing and exclusion from its awards.

The rule that matters most is about design. If a survey or outside website ends up sending guests to write a Tripadvisor review, "the user interface and experience for submitting positive and negative reviews must be identical". Tripadvisor's own example describes the flow above: sending guests who report a good experience to a review page, and guests who report a bad one down another path such as customer support, is against its guidelines.

The practical test: whatever a guest tells you first, their route to a Tripadvisor review should look and work the same as everyone else's. That means the same button, at the same step, with the same prominence. A complaint form first, or a smaller link, for guests who rated you low is hard to square with that rule.

Trustpilot's invitation rules

Trustpilot's guidelines for businesses set out dos and don'ts for review invitations. You should invite everyone in the same way, whether their experience was good or bad, and use fair, neutral wording. You must not:

• pick and choose who gets an invitation, including inviting only people you know had a good experience
• time invitations for a point in the customer journey that only satisfied customers reach
• suggest that you only want positive reviews

How UK law treats selective asking

Since 6 April 2025, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 has banned publishing consumer reviews in a misleading way. One of its examples is:

giving greater prominence to positive consumer reviews over negative ones (or vice versa)

Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, Schedule 20, paragraph 13(5)(i)(ii)

That example is about how reviews are displayed, and the Act doesn't use the phrase "review gating". The link to selective asking comes from the CMA's guidance on fake reviews (CMA208), which applies the same ban on misleading publication to who you encourage to review. It says cherry-picking positive reviews over negative ones can be done by suppressing negative reviews "or by encouraging just those who are satisfied to leave reviews" (paragraph 4.5).

The same guidance, at paragraph 4.4, says traders should not interfere with people's ability or willingness to leave negative reviews in the first place. Its examples include:

• "arbitrarily stopping and starting review invitations"
• "making an offer of dispute resolution contingent on a consumer not leaving a negative review"

If you show your Google or Tripadvisor rating on your own website, the guidance treats you as a publisher of reviews too. It expects you to check, on reasonable grounds, that the platform's own steps against fake and misleading reviews are good enough, or to take more steps yourself (paragraph 8.32).

The CMA can now enforce this law directly. Under section 182 of the Act it can impose a penalty of up to £300,000 or, if higher, 10% of turnover. In March 2026 it opened investigations into five businesses over their review practices. Two of them, into Autotrader and Feefo, are looking at whether some 1-star reviews moderated by Feefo were not published on Autotrader and were not counted towards star ratings. As of September 2026 the CMA lists both cases as open, and it has said it has not reached any conclusions about whether the law has been broken.

The compliant alternative: ask everyone, fix problems fast, never block the review

Gating is tempting because it seems to solve a real problem. You want to hear about the cold main course or the noisy room before it turns into a one-star review. You still can. Every guest should see the same public review step, at the same point in the flow and with the same prominence, whatever they told you first. Offer private feedback and a way to reach a manager to everyone, alongside the review link, not as a branch triggered by a low score. Our guide to getting more Google reviews shows how to set up Google's own review link and QR code, and where to put them.

A checklist for Monday morning:

1. Ask every guest the same way. Put the QR code or link where everyone sees it: table cards, bill folders, room cards, the post-stay email. Not just at tables that seem happy.
2. Keep the wording neutral. Ask how the visit was and invite an honest review. Don't mention the rating you'd like.
3. Show the public review link to everyone, in the same place and the same way. Offer a way to reach a manager on the same screen for every guest, not only those who report a problem.
4. Keep invitations running. Don't pause requests after a bad week or a bad inspection.
5. Never make help conditional. Fix the problem because it is a problem. Never tie a refund, a free dessert or an apology to the guest not posting a review, or to them changing one. Our explainer on offering incentives for reviews covers where a goodwill gesture crosses the line.
6. Get problems to the right person during service. A complaint that reaches the duty manager in minutes can be fixed while the guest is still there.
7. Reply to reviews, especially negative ones and any where you have something useful to add. Google's tips encourage businesses to reply and share their perspective. There is a reply structure, with examples, in our guide to responding to negative reviews.
8. Brief your team. No review quotas, no asking guests to name a server, no hovering while a guest writes.
9. Test your own flow. Walk through it twice, once as a delighted guest and once as a furious one. If the route to the public review looks or works any differently for the unhappy guest, such as an extra screen, a form first or a smaller link, change it.

Where Monty fits

Monty asks guests for feedback through a branded page opened from a QR code on table cards, stands or room cards, in 31 languages, with no app or login.

A low rating or an issue report becomes an SOS alert for the right person by email, WhatsApp, Telegram or in the app, and unacknowledged alerts escalate after two hours by default. The review inbox gathers your Google, Tripadvisor and Trustpilot reviews and drafts a reply to each in your venue's tone, for a person to check and post.

This article is general information, not legal advice.