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What's up! Kyle here.
Google quietly updated their review policy on April 17 and most dentists have no idea it happened.
Two new rules were added under Google's ‘Rating Manipulation’ section. Both of them directly affect how most dental practices ask for reviews.
Rule #1: You can no longer direct your staff to solicit a specific number of reviews. Those monthly review contests where your hygienists compete to see who gets the most Google reviews? That's now explicitly a violation.
Rule #2: You can no longer ask patients to include specific content in their review, including mentioning a staff member by name. If you've been training your front desk to say "Would you mind mentioning Sarah in your review?" That's done. gainst the rules.
This wasn't a quiet suggestion from Google. They added these to the same section that covers fake reviews, review gating and spam. And they're enforcing it. Businesses across multiple industries are already reporting reviews disappearing in bulk. Some practices have lost dozens of legitimate reviews in a matter of days.
Amy Toman, a Google Diamond Product Expert, was the first to spot the change. Her take was simple. Google has seen too many review contests and quota-based programs, so they shut them down.
Here's the thing. A lot of dental practices have been running some version of this playbook for years. "Mention your hygienist by name!" "We're trying to hit 500 reviews this quarter!" "The team member with the most review mentions gets a bonus!" It felt harmless. It even felt smart. But Google's AI can now detect patterns in your reviews. If 15 reviews in a row mention "Sarah" by name, that doesn't look organic. It looks coached. And Google is treating it the same as fake reviews.
So what can you still do?
You can absolutely still ask patients for reviews. Google's own documentation encourages it. Sharing a review link via text, email or a QR code in your office is perfectly fine. We’ve been shipping review tap-plates out to our practices recently.
But the key is that the ask has to be open-ended. "We'd love to hear about your experience" is fine. "Would you mind mentioning Sarah and giving us 5 stars?" is not.
You also need to ask everyone, not just the patients you know had a great visit. Selectively asking only happy patients is called review gating and that's been against the rules for a while. Google is now enforcing that more aggressively too.
Here's your action item for this week. If you have any internal process, script or contest that directs staff to hit a review number or asks patients to mention employees by name, shut it down today. Not next month. Today. Then train your team on the new rules before Google trains them for you by removing your reviews.
The good news is that the fundamentals haven't changed. Deliver great care, make the ask, make it easy and let the patient say what they want to say in their own words. That's always been the right approach. Now it's the only approach.
Talk next week.
— Kyle / Founder, Search-To-Seat™
Big News! I’m running a Live Webinar on Tuesday, May 26th at 7:00 PM EST. You can reserve your spot for $2 (the minimum Eventbrite would let me put) and I’ll be going over our entire system on how we drive new patients using Search-To-Seat. You can reserve your spot here, I’m going to cap it at 250 people. You don’t have to interact, simply hop in the Zoom room and listen. No cameras or mics needed.
