What is review gating?
Review gating means asking only customers who indicated a positive experience to leave a public review, or steering unhappy customers away from public review sites. Google's Maps user-generated content policy prohibits it.
What counts as review gating
Review gating is a filter in front of the public review request. A typical example: a business asks 'How was your visit?' and only customers who answer positively are sent to Google, while everyone else is sent to a private form with no way to post publicly.
Google's Maps user-generated content policy lists 'discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers' as rating manipulation. Other review sites, including Trustpilot, have similar rules.
What does not count
Asking every customer for a review is allowed. So is spreading customers across several review sites, for example half to Google and half to Trustpilot, as long as nobody is filtered out based on their experience.
Offering a private feedback form is also fine when it is offered in addition to the public review option, not instead of it.
How GetRating handles it
GetRating asks every customer. In 5-star mode, customers who pick 1–3 stars see a private feedback form together with your public review links, so they can still post publicly. Split, A/B and Links modes send every customer to a public review site.
If a location has no public review link configured, low-rating customers only see the form. Add at least one review link to every location.