Review filter and platform policies
The review filter is a useful tool and a policy question at the same time. This page explains what the major platforms allow, what they do not, and how to configure Trustaroo so your review collection holds up if anyone looks at it closely.
This page describes publicly stated platform policies as we understand them and is general information, not legal advice. Platform rules change and enforcement varies. Read the current policies of the platforms you use and take your own advice on your situation.
What review gating means
Review gating is the practice of asking about someone's experience first and then only inviting the people who answered positively to leave a public review. The public rating that results is higher than reality, because the unhappy customers were routed away before they ever reached the review form.
What the platforms say
Google's review policies prohibit review gating: soliciting reviews selectively from customers you expect to rate you well is not allowed. Google's position is that businesses should ask all customers for feedback, not a screened subset.
Trustpilot and other platforms have comparable rules. Trustpilot expects invitations to be sent on a neutral basis to a representative set of customers rather than to a hand-picked group, and treats selective inviting as a breach of its guidelines.
The practical consequences of breaching these rules can include removed reviews, a warning or notice on your profile, loss of any review-based badges or rich results, and in serious or repeated cases the removal of your ability to collect reviews on that platform.
What Trustaroo actually does
It is worth being precise about the mechanics, because the filter is often described inaccurately in both directions.
The review filter routes ratings. A rating at or above your threshold sees a button to your public review page. A rating below it sees your private feedback form instead.
What it does not do:
- It does not hide, edit or delete any public review. Trustaroo has no access to your Google or Trustpilot content.
- It does not stop anyone from reviewing you publicly. Every customer can search for your business and post whatever they want, with or without your link.
- It does not silence complaints. A low rating and its written feedback are recorded in your account, where you can read and act on them.
So the filter is a routing rule on your own page, not a suppression mechanism. Whether a given configuration counts as gating depends on how you use it.
Using Trustaroo in a compliant way
Ask every customer, not a chosen few. Put the QR code where everybody sees it and send the link to your whole list. Selection is what the policies object to, far more than the mechanics of any tool.
Treat private feedback as service recovery, not as a filter. The value of a routed low rating is that you learn about the problem while you can still fix it. Read it, reply, put it right. Using the route to keep criticism away from the public record while ignoring it is both the thing the policies target and a waste of the information.
Consider running with the filter off. With the filter off, everyone who opens your link goes straight to your review page and nobody is asked to rate first. You lose the private feedback step and the ratings on your own dashboard, and you gain a review profile that is unambiguously representative. Many businesses on Google-only setups choose this.
Or use a low threshold. A threshold of 2 stars or 3 stars routes only clearly negative experiences to the feedback form and sends the broad middle to the public platform. That is a materially different posture from a threshold of 5, which routes everything except perfection away.
Never make the reward conditional. Do not offer discounts, entries or gifts in exchange for a review, and do not make anything depend on the rating given. That is prohibited separately from gating, and it is easier to prove.
The honest risk assessment
A high threshold produces better-looking numbers in the short term. The risks are that your reviews can be removed or your profile penalized, that the pattern is visible to anyone comparing your public rating with your actual service, and that you build your reputation on something a policy change can take away overnight.
A representative profile with a handful of mediocre reviews, answered well, is more durable and more persuasive to the people reading it than a wall of five stars. That is a business judgment rather than a compliance one, but the two point the same way.