5 star Google reviews: what you can ask for and how the average really works

Short answer: send one honest request to every customer in the same way, with no star rating mentioned and nothing offered in return. Anything that sells or promises “5 star Google reviews” falls outside that line, and you can work out your average yourself with simple arithmetic.

The short answer: ask for a review, never for five stars

Search for “5 star Google reviews” and much of what comes back is people selling them, plus advice to “get more 5-star reviews” that never says what you are not allowed to do. The plain version is short.

You can ask customers to leave a Google review. Google’s own help page on getting more reviews suggests reminding customers with a link or a QR code. What you cannot do is steer the result. Google’s content policy says merchants may encourage reviews of genuine experiences “without offering incentives to do so or attempting to influence the rating or the contents of the review”, and that they should not “request that specific content be included”. Asking for five stars is an attempt to influence the rating.

Trustpilot is more explicit still. Its guidelines for businesses give “If you like us, please leave us a 5-star review” as an example of what not to say.

The guide on whether you can ask for a 5-star review covers the wording in detail, and the rules for asking for Google reviews set out the full list.

Why buying 5 star Google reviews is the wrong shortcut

Fake reviews are for sale, and the sellers are good at looking helpful. Google’s policy says contributions to Maps should reflect a genuine experience, and that fake engagement “is not allowed and will be removed”. Its tips page describes incentivised reviews as fake and misleading content that is “strictly prohibited”.

UK law covers it too. The CMA’s fake reviews guidance, published in April 2025, explains the ban in Schedule 20 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. The law bans both submitting fake reviews and commissioning another person to write them. Commissioning goes well beyond paying cash: the CMA’s examples include money, commissions, discounts or vouchers, freebies, free stays and invitations to events. Our walkthrough of fake reviews and UK law explains what that means for a small business.

Even setting the rules aside, a bought review is poor value. It is a number with no customer behind it. You cannot learn from it, you cannot reply to it in any meaningful way, and it can disappear when Google removes it.

What the 5-star ask crosses into: gating and incentives

Four things are off limits, and two of them catch honest owners by accident.

1. Buying reviews. Covered above.
2. Incentives. Google bans offering “payment, discounts, free goods and/or services” in exchange for a review. Trustpilot’s list adds promo codes, prize draw entries and refunds. One detail worth knowing: the CMA guidance says a prize draw is unlikely to count as commissioning under the law. Trustpilot still bans prize draw entries by name and Google bans incentives, so for your review requests the answer stays no.
3. Gating. Google says merchants must not “discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers”. Trustpilot asks businesses to invite everyone in the same way, at the same point in the customer journey, whether their experience was positive or negative. A flow that asks “were you happy?” and sends only the yeses to Google is gating.
4. Asking for a specific rating. Covered above.

Gating is the one that feels reasonable. Why send a review link to the customer who has just complained? Because the rules say the request goes to everyone, and because a profile built only from customers you picked gives readers a false picture. If someone has a problem, sort it out, and send them the same request you send everyone else.

You can still say thank you and make leaving a review easy. The guide on asking for an honest review shows how.

How a star average moves: a worked example with small numbers

Google’s help page says the review score “is the average of all ratings published on Google” for the business, and that it may take up to two weeks for the score to update after a new review. It does not say how the figure is rounded for display, so the examples below are worked to two decimal places. They illustrate the arithmetic. They are not statistics about any real business.

Adding five-star reviews. Say you have 20 reviews averaging 4.5. The stars add up to 20 × 4.5 = 90. Five new 5-star reviews add 25 stars, giving 115 stars across 25 reviews. 115 ÷ 25 = 4.6. Five perfect reviews moved the average by 0.1.

Getting past 4.7. From the same start, thirteen 5-star reviews in a row give 155 ÷ 33, about 4.697, which is just short. Fourteen give 160 ÷ 34, about 4.71.

One three-star review. Back at 20 reviews averaging 4.5 (90 stars), one 3-star review makes 93 stars across 21 reviews. 93 ÷ 21 is about 4.43. One middling review took off about 0.07, close to the 0.1 that five perfect reviews added.

A new business at 5.0. Four reviews, all 5 stars, total 20. One 4-star review arrives: 24 ÷ 5 = 4.8.

That last example answers a question owners ask a lot: why do I have 4.8 and not 5.0? Someone gave you fewer than five stars, and when you only have a few reviews, each one carries a lot of weight. If a review has only just been posted, remember the score can take up to two weeks to catch up.

To run your own numbers, multiply your review count by your current average, add the stars from the new reviews, and divide by the new total number of reviews.

Why a 4.7 can be better than a 5.0

I have no statistic on how readers react to ratings, and I will not invent one. Google’s own tips page says it plainly: “A mix of positive and negative feedback often feels more trustworthy.”

The arithmetic points the same way. A 5.0 built on four reviews is one lukewarm customer away from 4.8. A 4.7 built on a hundred reviews (470 stars) drops to about 4.68 after a 3-star review (473 ÷ 101). It holds steady, and it tells readers that many real people had real experiences and most of them liked what they got.

Chasing a perfect score also tends to lead back to the practices above: filtering who gets asked, nudging for a rating, quietly skipping awkward customers. The only reliable route to an unbroken 5.0 runs through the things that make it worthless.

What to do instead this week

1. Pick one way of asking, such as a text, an email or a printed card, and use it for every customer.
2. Keep the wording to a request for an honest review, with no mention of stars and nothing offered in return. The review request generator drafts that message for you.
3. Send it at the same point for everyone, for example the day after a job is finished.
4. Reply to the reviews that come in, good and awkward alike.

For the longer how-to, the guide on getting more Google reviews in the UK covers links, QR codes and timing.

Questions people ask

Can I get paid reviews on Google?

No. Google's content policy says merchants must not offer incentives such as payment, discounts, free goods or services in exchange for a review, and reviews posted because of an incentive are removed. In the UK, the CMA's guidance explains that the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 bans commissioning fake reviews and concealed incentivised reviews.

Can you ask customers for a 5 star Google review?

You can ask for a review. You cannot ask for a particular rating. Google says merchants may encourage reviews of genuine experiences without attempting to influence the rating or the contents of the review. Ask for honest feedback and let the customer pick the stars.

What is considered a good number of Google reviews?

Google does not publish a target number. The arithmetic shows why more genuine reviews help: each new review moves the average less. In our illustration, one 4-star review takes four perfect reviews from 5.0 to 4.8, while one 3-star review moves a hundred reviews averaging 4.7 by about 0.02.

How many 5 star reviews do I need to raise my rating?

It depends on where you start. In our illustration, 20 reviews averaging 4.5 need five 5-star reviews in a row to reach 4.6 and fourteen to get past 4.7. To work out your own: multiply your review count by your average, add the new stars, then divide by the new review count.

Is it illegal to buy Google reviews in the UK?

Yes. The CMA's fake reviews guidance explains that Schedule 20 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 bans submitting fake reviews and commissioning someone else to write them. Buying reviews is also against Google's policy, and Google removes them.