How to Get Reviews Without a Google Business Profile
Short answer: you can get reviews without a Google Business Profile by collecting them on a page you own (your own review link and form), on platforms that accept any business such as Facebook recommendations, Trustpilot or the marketplace you sell on, and sending customers to them with one link. A Google profile is one place reviews can live, not the only one.
If you sell through Instagram, run an online-only shop or just started out, you may have found that Google will not give you a profile. That does not mean you have to go without reviews.
Who can't get a Google Business Profile?
Google's guidelines say a business needs to make in-person contact with customers during its stated business hours to be eligible, and online-only businesses do not qualify. You can read the rules in Google's Business Profile guidelines.
That rules out a lot of small sellers. A baker who takes orders through Instagram DMs and hands over cakes at a pickup point, a print shop that ships everything, a coach who works over video calls.
There are two other common cases. A maker working from home may not want their address on a map. Service-area businesses that visit customers in person can hide their address on a Google profile, so this is worth checking before you give up on one. And a brand-new business may simply be waiting on verification, which can leave you with no profile for a while.
If any of those describes you, the answer is to put your reviews somewhere else and point people at them.
Where can reviews live if not on Google?
A Google Business Profile is one location for reviews. These are the realistic alternatives, with what each one is good at and where it leaves you stuck.
Facebook Page recommendations. Facebook replaced star ratings with recommendations: a customer says yes or no to recommending you and can add text. It needs a Facebook Page, and the recommendations live on Facebook, so they only help people who find you there.
Trustpilot. It accepts any business, online-only included, and a business can open a free account. Reviews live on Trustpilot's own site, so you send people there and they sign in or sign up to write one.
Marketplace reviews, such as Etsy. If you sell on a marketplace, buyers can review you there. Those reviews only come from sales made on that marketplace and they stay on it, so they say nothing about the orders you take in DMs or on your own site.
A review page you own. You send people to a form and the reviews they write are yours to show anywhere: your bio, your site, your packaging. It does not depend on who qualifies for what. The trade-off is that nobody finds it by searching a map, so it works best for people you are already talking to.
These are not mutually exclusive. Many sellers use one place they control plus one outside platform.
How do you collect reviews on a page you own?
Collecting reviews on your own page takes five steps. Do them in order and you will have a working setup in an afternoon.
1. Pick one place for reviews to go
Choose a single destination for new reviews, whether that is a page you own or one outside platform. Reviews split across five places make none of them look busy.
2. Make one link and one QR code
Get a single review link that opens straight to the review form, and a QR code for the same link. The link goes into messages and your bio. The QR code goes on anything printed.
3. Ask at the right moment
The best time to ask for a review is right after the customer has the thing in their hands and is pleased with it. For when that is for different kinds of businesses, see the best time to ask for a review.
4. Keep the message short
A short message with one link is easier to act on than a long one with several. If you want wording to copy, review request templates has messages for email, text and WhatsApp.
5. Put the link where buyers decide
Add the review link to the places people look before they buy or after they receive: your Instagram bio, your order confirmation DM, a card in the package. If you have no website at all, selling on Instagram without a website covers how to set the rest of it up.
Can Kudo be your own review page?
Yes. A Kudo page is a single public page with your links and products on top and your reviews underneath, and it works without a Google profile.
The Free plan gives you a review link and a printable QR code. It collects as many reviews as people send and publishes up to 5 of them. Pro, at $7.99 a month, publishes all of them and adds photo reviews.
Reviews that come in through the form wait for your approval before they go on the page, unless you switch on auto-publish. If you get a Google profile later, your existing Google reviews can be imported into the same page.
What about when you do get a Google profile later?
Keep both. A Google Business Profile is what shows up when someone searches for you or for your kind of business on the map, so it is worth having once you qualify.
Your own review page is the link you hand out: in your bio, in a message, on a card. The two do different jobs, and a customer who reviews you in one place has not used up their chance to review you in the other.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can an online-only business get Google reviews?
Not through a Business Profile, because Google's guidelines require in-person contact with customers during stated business hours. You can collect reviews on a page you own, on Facebook, on Trustpilot or on the marketplace you sell through.
Are reviews on my own page less trustworthy than Google reviews?
They are as trustworthy as the way you handle them. Show the bad ones too, and do not ask only your happiest customers, because asking only happy customers is review gating. A page with a mix of ratings and honest replies reads as real.
Can I copy reviews from Instagram DMs onto a page?
Only with the customer's permission. Ask them first, and ideally ask them to send the review through your review link themselves so it is theirs and in their words.
Do I need a website to collect reviews?
No. A review link works from an Instagram bio, a WhatsApp message or a printed QR code, and the page it opens can be a single page rather than a full website.
How many reviews do I need before it is worth showing them?
There is no fixed number. A few real, recent reviews from named customers do more than none, so start showing them as soon as you have them.