Reviews courseModule 1 of 7: Start HereLesson 1.2
How Reviews Work: Platforms, Rules and the Words You Need
This lesson is your map: where reviews live, what a review is made of, who's involved, which rules apply, and the handful of words you'll meet throughout the course. Nothing here needs a tool.
6 min read
By Morgan King, founder of Reyse Facts checked October 2026
01What it is
Think of reviews as notes on school noticeboards. Different boards have different rules about who can pin a note and who can pin a reply. A teacher (the platform) takes down rude notes, and the headteacher (the regulator) makes sure nobody pins fake notes or pays pupils to write nice ones.
Where reviews live
| Platform | What it is | Can you reply? |
|---|---|---|
| Google (Business Profile, Maps, Search) | Stars from 1 to 5 plus optional text, from anyone with a Google Account. Where most local reviews are read. | Yes, once your profile is verified. Google checks replies first: usually within 10 minutes, sometimes up to 30 days. |
| Bing Places | Bing's local listings. A Microsoft forum answer (2025) says Bing doesn't copy your Google reviews and shows reviews from selected other sites. | Not confirmed |
| Apple Maps | Apple users can rate places. Guides disagree on whether UK place cards show third-party reviews. Apple Business manages your listing details, not reviews. | Not that we could find |
| Trustpilot | Any business with a website can be reviewed, and a profile can exist without you ever setting it up. | Yes, and you can flag reviews that break its rules |
| Pages use Recommendations (yes or no, with optional text) rather than stars. | Check your own Page | |
| Property review sites | allAgents, GetAgent, Feefo and others. Some collect their own reviews, some pull in Google's, some run awards. | Varies by site |
| Rightmove, Zoopla, OnTheMarket | We found no agent review feature on the portals' agent pages. | Not applicable |
What a review is made of
| Part | Why it matters | Lesson |
|---|---|---|
| Star rating and average | The first thing people see. Google's own advice says a mix of positive and negative looks more trustworthy than a perfect score. | 6.1 |
| The written text | Where the themes live (communication, fees, repairs) and where readers decide. | 5.2 |
| The count | Shows scale and stability. Google lists review count as part of how prominent a business is. | 4.1 |
| Recency | How recent the newest reviews are. 49% of people in YouGov's 2025 survey said recency matters. | 5.2 |
| Your reply | Shows readers how you treat people when things go wrong. | 3.1 |
Illustration
Go deeperWho’s involved
| Who | Their role |
|---|---|
| The customer | Writes the review. Your job is to make it easy and fair to speak, not to steer what they say. |
| The platform | Hosts the review and applies its own rules. Its rules aren't the law, but breaking them can cost you reviews or your profile. |
| You, the agent | Ask, reply, monitor and report. You're responsible for how you ask, what you publish and what you show on your own site. |
| The reader | The next seller, landlord, tenant or buyer, and the AI tool they ask. The person you're really writing for. |
| The CMA | The Competition and Markets Authority. Enforces consumer law on reviews directly, with fines of up to 10% of global turnover or £300,000, whichever is higher. |
| Trading Standards | Enforces consumer and estate agency law through the courts. |
| The ASA | The Advertising Standards Authority. Its code covers testimonials in your marketing. |
| The Property Ombudsman and Property Redress | The two redress schemes. A negative review can also be a complaint under their rules (lesson 3.2). |
| The ICO | The Information Commissioner's Office. Data protection and the rules on emails and texts (lessons 2.4 and 3.1). |
The rules, on one page
| Rule | What it covers |
|---|---|
| DMCC Act 2024, Schedule 20, paragraph 13 (in force since 6 April 2025) | Bans fake reviews, reviews that hide an incentive, and publishing reviews or review information in a misleading way. Anyone who publishes reviews must take reasonable steps to keep banned ones out. |
| CMA fake reviews guidance (CMA208, April 2025) | Explains how to comply. Asking only happy customers counts as cherry-picking. Showing reviews on your own website makes you a publisher. |
| Google's review policy | No fake reviews, no incentives, no reviews from staff or family, and no asking only for positive reviews. Since April 2026, no asking staff to collect a set number of reviews or reviews that name them. |
| Trustpilot's business guidelines | Invite everyone the same way. No selecting happy customers, no incentives, no staff or family. |
| The CAP Code (rules 3.47 to 3.50) | Testimonials in your marketing must be genuine, held on file, used with permission and not misleading. |
| PECR and UK GDPR | How you may email and text clients, and how you handle their data. |
| Defamation Act 2013 (England and Wales) | A business is only defamed if a statement causes, or is likely to cause, serious financial loss. |
| Redress scheme codes | An in-house complaints procedure with set timescales, and client information kept confidential. |
The words you need
- : asking for feedback in a way that sends unhappy customers to a private form and happy ones to a public review. Against the rules (lesson 2.3).
- Selective asking: only asking the clients you expect to be happy. The same problem by another route. Google calls it "selectively soliciting positive reviews"; the calls it cherry-picking.
- Incentive: anything given in return for a review: a discount, a voucher, a gift, a place in a prize draw. Google and Trustpilot ban them outright.
- Fake review: one that claims to be from a genuine experience but isn't. Includes staff or family posing as clients, bought reviews and attacks from competitors.
- : the share of your reviews that have a reply from you (lesson 5.2).
- Recency: how recently your reviews were written. Review velocity: how many new ones arrive each month.
- Theme: a topic that repeats across reviews, such as communication, repairs or fees.
- Negative cluster: a sudden run of bad reviews. Our working rule is two 1 or 2-star reviews in seven days, or the same complaint twice (lesson 5.1).
- Review link: a web address that opens your review box directly.
- Primary Owner: the main account holder of a Google . Keep it in the business's hands (lesson 4.1).
Go deeperOne review, start to finish
| Step | What can go wrong | Lesson |
|---|---|---|
| 1. The experience | A problem nobody noticed becomes the review | 5.2 |
| 2. The request | Wrong moment, too many steps, only some clients asked, no permission to message | Module 2 |
| 3. The click | Broken link, wrong branch, no Google Account | 2.2 |
| 4. The review | Fake, mistaken or unfair | 3.3 |
| 5. The platform checks it | Held back or filtered, and you may never know | 7.1 |
| 6. The alert | Nobody's watching the inbox, or only one person is | 5.1 |
| 7. Your reply | Slow, defensive, careless with personal data, or nobody owns it | 3.1 and 3.2 |
| 8. The reader | Old or mixed reviews, or a different rating on every platform | 6.1 and 6.2 |
Sources
- 1.Prohibited and restricted content · Google Maps user contributed content policy
- 2.Fake reviews: guidance for businesses (CMA208) · Competition and Markets Authority
- 3.Guidelines for businesses · Trustpilot
- 4.Bing Places for Business · Microsoft Bing
- 5.Apple Business · Apple
- 6.How UK shoppers check if an online store is legit before purchasing · YouGov, 2025
Facts checked October 2026, and re-checked every quarter. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.
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