Many review tools on the market — especially older ones — work on a principle called review gating: the tool first asks customers how their visit went, and only the ones who say something positive are ever shown the review link. The unhappy ones are quietly routed to a feedback form instead. It sounds like reputation management. In practice, it's the one thing Google and UK regulators explicitly warn against.
The short version
Review gating is against Google's review policies — Google states that gating tactics used to block negative reviews are prohibited and can lead to action against a business's profile. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has the same view: selectively soliciting positive reviews misleads consumers. Revly never gates. Every customer gets the same link, the customer picks their own rating, and the AI draft just makes it easier to finish the review they already chose to write.
What gating actually does to your profile
A gated profile accumulates one kind of review — the glowing kind — and readers notice. A wall of five-star praise with no texture reads less like a beloved local and more like a censored one. Google's systems also look for unnatural review patterns, and profiles built on gated collection are the ones that risk filtered reviews, warning labels, or worse when the pattern is detected.
How Revly collects honest reviews instead
- One link for every customer. Happy or unhappy, the QR code goes to the same place. No routing, no scoring, no filtering.
- The customer picks the stars. Our flow never asks "how was it?" as a gate. It asks what they enjoyed — and the rating is entirely theirs to choose at the end.
- AI assists the writing, never the sentiment. The draft is built from what the customer actually tapped. It doesn't add enthusiasm they didn't express.
- Unhappy guests still talk to you first. Because the flow is quick and easy, dissatisfied customers often leave their feedback through the review link the same evening — where a good public response can turn a 2-star draft into a story of great service recovery.
The honest trade-off
Gating produces a higher average star rating in the short term — that's precisely why it's tempting and why it's banned. Ungated collection produces a lower, realer average with the kind of detailed written reviews that future customers actually trust, and that Google's local search rewards. We think the second profile is worth more. If you agree, see how the ungated flow works on the demo page.