Google reviews for trade businesses: what changed in April 2026, and how to ask and reply
Google tightened its review rules on 17 April 2026, and two of the new clauses hit practices that trade businesses considered harmless: giving staff a review target and asking customers to mention someone by name. This article explains what is now banned, what was already banned, why asking still works when it is done properly, and why replying to every review, including the bad ones, is the half of the job most firms skip.
A flooring firm with six staff finished a job in March, a full ground floor of engineered oak in a renovated farmhouse. The customer was delighted and said so at handover. On Google the firm has fourteen reviews. The newest is from 2024. The competitor two villages over has ninety, with three from last month, and ranks above the firm for every search that matters.
The owner knows this and has tried to fix it. Last year the fitters were told to get five reviews each by Christmas, and to ask customers to mention the fitter by name so the owner could see who was delivering. It produced eleven reviews in December and none since. As of April this year, that instruction is also against Google's rules.
What Google changed on 17 April 2026
Google added two clauses to its rating manipulation policy for Maps on 17 April 2026. The first bans directing staff to solicit a specific number of reviews. The second bans directing staff to request reviews that include specific content, and it names content that identifies a staff member as the example. Both were spotted and documented by Google product experts within days; Google has not published guidance on how broadly the "specific content" clause will be read, and practitioners are still arguing about it.
For a trade business the practical reading is simple. No review targets for the crew, no "ask them to mention you", no script that tells the customer what to write. Ask for a review, hand over the link, and let the customer say what they like.
What was already banned stays banned, and it is worth restating because I still see all of it. No incentives of any kind, so no discount, no voucher, no prize draw for a review. No review gating, meaning no asking whether the customer was happy and only sending the happy ones to Google. No reviews written by staff, family or the owner's mate. No pressure on the premises, no tablet held out at handover. Google removes reviews it catches and can suspend the profile. A suspended profile disappears from Search and Maps, including for people searching your name.
The UK went further than Google in April 2025, when the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act made fake reviews and undisclosed incentivised reviews illegal, with the competition authority opening its first five investigations in March 2026. Germany has no equivalent single law, but paid reviews without disclosure are unfair competition under the UWG, and the consent rules for asking apply, as the next section explains.
Why asking still works
BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey of 1,002 US consumers found that 97 percent read reviews before choosing a local business, and, more usefully, that 83 percent of people who had been asked for a review in the last twelve months wrote one. No German survey matches that quality, but anyone who has looked for a tradesperson recognises the behaviour. Most satisfied customers will review. They do not, because nobody asks.
Reviews also feed ranking. Whitespark's 2026 survey of 47 local-search specialists puts review signals at roughly 20 percent of Google's local ranking formula. That is an expert estimate, not a number from Google, and it matches what anyone sees who types "flooring" plus a town.
So the fix for the flooring firm is not to stop asking. It is to ask every customer the same way, with no target, no script and no incentive.
How to ask without breaking the rules
Ask the day after handover. On the day, the customer is still clearing up and looking at the invoice. A week later the new floor is just the floor. The next morning is when they first walk across it in daylight.
In Germany, an electronic review request counts as advertising under section 7 of the UWG, so it needs either the customer's express consent or the existing-customer exception for email, which requires that you told them at the time you took the address that they could object. The clean way is a line on the order confirmation and the handover sheet, a tick box that is not pre-ticked, and a spoken question at handover: "May we send you a short message tomorrow with a link to leave a review?" A customer who has just watched you finish says yes.
The message itself is short. "Good morning Ms Example, thank you for the order. We hope the floor is a pleasure to walk on. If you have two minutes, a Google review helps others choose and helps us a great deal as a small firm: [link]. If anything is not right, please call us first and we will sort it out. You can stop these messages at any time with a short reply." The link goes straight to the review window on the Google Business Profile, not to the homepage. The sentence about calling first is not review gating, because the link is there for everyone; it just gives the customer a route to you before a route to the public.
Do not tell the customer what to write, and do not ask them to name the fitter. If they do it anyway, that is fine. It has to be their choice.
Replying is the half most firms skip
Every review gets a reply, within a few days, in the firm's own voice. This is the part I see skipped most often, and it is the part that decides how the profile reads to the next customer.
A reply to a good review is two sentences: thanks, and one specific detail that shows a person read it. "Thank you, Ms Example. The oak in the hallway was a pleasure to lay, and we are glad the underfloor heating is behaving." Then, if it fits, the referral line: "If you know anyone planning a floor, feel free to pass on our number."
A reply to a bad review is the one that matters. Keep it short, keep it factual, do not argue in public, and move the conversation offline: "Thank you for the feedback. That is not the standard we aim for, and we would like to put it right. Please call the office and ask for me directly." Prospective customers read that reply more carefully than the review. A firm that answers a complaint calmly looks like a firm that will answer the phone when something goes wrong.
Google is now testing AI-generated suggested replies inside the Business Profile. Use them as a draft if you like, but edit every one. A reply that reads like every other reply says the opposite of what a reply is for.
By hand or automatically
A firm with two or three jobs a week can run this from a phone: a template, the consent line on the handover sheet, a look at the calendar each morning, and ten minutes a week for replies. The effort per message is small. The regularity is the problem, and in the season, when three floors are going down at once, it is the first thing to go.
The reviews and referrals employee sends the request the day after completion to customers who have consented, drafts replies to incoming reviews in the firm's voice for the owner to approve, and asks the referral question. The April rules are built into it: no targets, no scripts, no incentives, the same link for everyone. What more reviews are worth to your firm, the calculator works out in your own numbers.
The flooring firm did not lay a worse floor than the competitor with ninety reviews. It set its fitters a target instead of asking its customers a question. Since April, the question is the only thing left that works.