Your Google review link and QR code: where they are, where to put them

Where your Google review link is

In the UK, “google review link” is searched 1,600 times a month and “google review qr code” 1,000 times. Both answers sit in the same place, the reviews panel of your Business Profile. Google tells business owners to ask customers to visit a Google link or scan a QR code, and gives you both from there:

1. 1
   On a computer, sign in with the Google Account that manages the business and open your Business Profile (search for your business name on Google, or go through Google Maps).
2. 2
   Select “Read reviews, then Get more reviews”.
3. 3
   To copy the review link, select “Copy”. Paste it into a note so you have it to hand.
4. 4
   Open the link in a private browser window: you should land on the star rating form of your own business, not on someone else’s listing.

Turning it into a QR code

You do not need a QR code generator: Google makes one for you. Google’s help page notes that reviews QR codes can only be generated on a computer browser, not on mobile devices. From the same panel:

1. 1
   To download the QR code, right-click the QR code, then Save image as...
2. 2
   Before printing a batch, scan the saved image with two phones (one iPhone, one Android): both should open your review form.
3. 3
   Print it large enough to scan from where the customer stands, with one line of text next to it saying what it does, for example “Tell us how we did on Google”.

Where UK businesses put the link and the code

Google lists where it suggests using them: receipts, thank you emails, the end of a chat interaction, the QR code printed and displayed in your store. It adds that you can send review requests by email, WhatsApp message or Facebook post. In practice, the right place is wherever the customer has their phone in hand just after the service:

• Shops, cafés, salons: a small card on the counter or by the card reader, where people wait for their receipt.
• Trades (plumbers, electricians, builders): the link in the text or email you send when the job is done, and the QR code at the bottom of the invoice. A code on the van is seen by everyone in the street; the request that works is the one sent to the customer you have just worked for.
• Appointments (clinics, garages, accountants): the link in the follow-up email, the code on the printed invoice or the card handed back with the keys.
• Online and by phone: the link at the end of the chat or in the order confirmation once the order has arrived.

Ask everyone. Google’s policy forbids merchants to selectively solicit positive reviews from customers, so the card goes to every customer, not only those you know are happy. Across the 4,631 Google Maps listings we surveyed in France, the median listing has 27 reviews: a steady habit of asking matters more than any single campaign.

What Google and UK law forbid

Two sets of rules apply to the same QR code. On Google’s side, offering customers anything in exchange for a review is considered fake engagement and is strictly prohibited. Its content policy adds that merchants should not require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises, nor ask their staff to collect a set number of reviews or reviews that name them.

On the UK side, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 lists in paragraph 13 of Schedule 20 the submitting or commissioning of a fake consumer review, or of a review that conceals it was incentivised, as a practice that is always unfair. It has applied since 6 April 2025. The guidance of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for businesses is plain: “do not offer inducements (money or gifts) to customers to write positive reviews about your business”. It adds that a breach of consumer law can lead to a fine of up to 10% of global turnover. If an agency or a “review service” does it for you, you may be liable for their actions.

• Allowed: asking every customer, with the link or the code. The CMA’s fake reviews guidance says that merely emailing customers generally to ask if they wish to provide a review is not prohibited.
• Not allowed on Google: a discount, a free coffee or a prize draw for scanning the code and leaving a review, even a review the customer would have written anyway.
• The trap: UK law does not ban incentivised reviews outright (to comply, traders must tell consumers that the review has been incentivised, and the review must still reflect the reviewer’s genuine experience), but the CMA itself notes that many publication media do not allow incentivised reviews. Google is one of them, so an incentive is out on your Business Profile.
• Also illegal under the same paragraph: publishing reviews in a misleading way, for example failing to publish, or removing from publication, negative consumer reviews whilst publishing positive ones. Keep this in mind for the reviews you copy onto your own website.

Our take

Start with the link, not the QR code: a short text sent the same evening to every customer you have served is what we would set up first, because it reaches people who are no longer on your premises. Then add Google’s own QR code where people wait or pay, and on every invoice. Skip paid QR generators and anything that looks like a reward for scanning: Google strictly prohibits them, and if the reward is not disclosed, UK law treats them as banned, all for a few extra stars.

The FindMyCompany team