Our free tools, data and developer docs: questions and answers

Yes. Switch the platform to Google at the top. The questions then follow Google's content policies: offensive content, personal information, advertising, restricted content, off-topic, conflict of interest, fake engagement and the legal route. Each result links to our page on that policy.

No. It is a general indication based on the platform's published categories. Trustpilot assesses every flag, and Google assesses every report. We do not promise that any review will be removed.

No. It runs in your browser. Nothing is sent to us or anyone else, and it does not ask for the review text, the reviewer or your brand.

Trustpilot accepts one reason per flag. Start with the reason where the proof is in the review's own words, such as a phone number or a promo code. Once that case is closed, a different issue can be flagged separately. Source: how to flag service reviews.

Reply to it and fix the cause. Most 1-star reviews are genuine experiences, and Trustpilot keeps them online. Our guide to the two lists Trustpilot works from explains the line.

It depends on how many you already have. With 220 reviews it takes 126 new 5-star reviews. With 60 reviews it takes 35. The formula is your review count times the gap to your target, divided by five minus the target, rounded up.

Only that it is an average. Google's help page says the rating is the average of all ratings published on Google. It publishes no weighting, no recency effect and no formula, which is the opposite of Trustpilot's TrustScore. So this calculator is the arithmetic Google describes, not a guess at a hidden formula.

Google says a rating can take up to two weeks to update. A review can also be filtered or removed before it counts. Our guide on Google reviews missing covers the reasons Google gives.

Asking is fine. Asking only the happy ones is review gating, and the platforms ban it. Google's policy tells merchants not to selectively solicit positive reviews. Our guide to why platforms ban gated review requests covers what the FTC does and does not say about it.

Removal, by a wide margin, but only reviews that break one of Google's policies can be removed and Google decides each one. On a profile with 220 reviews at 3.9, five removals take the rating to 3.97, which would otherwise take 15 new 5-star reviews. The free audit tells you how many of yours qualify.

No. It runs in your browser. The numbers appear in the page address so you can share a result, and nothing is stored or sent to us.

A review QR code is a printed square that opens your review form when a customer points a phone camera at it. A Google one holds your Business Profile review link and nothing else. It works on a counter, a receipt, a packing slip or a thank-you card. The code only saves typing: the rules on asking for reviews still apply.

Yes, and you should start there. Your Business Profile has one under Read reviews, then Get more reviews. Two limits make people look elsewhere. Google says the code can only be generated on a computer browser, and it is saved by right-clicking the image. That leaves you a screen-sized picture rather than a file you can print large.

A QR code printed from a small image goes soft at the edges, and a soft edge is what makes a camera hesitate. This tool gives you an SVG, which has no fixed size and stays sharp at any scale. It also gives PNG files at 512, 1024 and 2048 pixels, for tools that cannot take an SVG.

No. The code is generated in your browser by our own encoder. Nothing is uploaded, and there is no account. The link does appear in the page address so you can send yourself the same code, and that address stays in your browser.

Many free generators point the code at their own domain first, then forward to yours. That code stops working if they stop paying for the domain or start charging, and by then it is printed on a thousand cards. A code made here contains your link and nothing else.

Yes. Google suggests printing it in your store, on receipts, in thank-you emails and at the end of a chat. The rule is who you show it to. Showing it only to customers who seem happy is review gating, and Google tells merchants not to selectively solicit positive reviews.

No. Google calls offering free or discounted goods or services in exchange for reviews fake engagement, and strictly prohibits it. The FTC's rule covers the same ground for US businesses. Ask for the review and leave the incentive out of it.

Level M, which can still be read when about 15% of the code is damaged or covered. That is the usual choice for print. The code has a white quiet zone around it, and you should leave that clear rather than crop to the edge of the squares.

With us, $475 to $600 per confirmed removal, by pack size, and nothing up front. Move the slider to your number of reviews and the calculator shows the pack that fits and the most the project can cost. The pricing page has the billing terms, and the cost page compares published market figures.

Because it assumes every review in your count comes down. You pay only for confirmed removals, so a review the platform keeps online costs nothing. A pack is a ceiling and never a deposit.

Most owners do not, and the number is usually smaller than the number of reviews they want gone. The free audit reads your profile and returns the count, with the rule each review breaks.

The largest pack holds 100 removals. A project with more than that starts with a Scale pack, and the rest goes into a second pack that is sized and quoted after the audit.

No. A pack counts confirmed removals on either platform at the same price, and one pack can hold both.

No. It picks one of our written templates and fills two or three slots from your choices, in the browser. We call it a generator because that is the word people search for, but there is no model, no API and no request to a server. The templates are in the open, in this repository.

Because the most expensive mistake in a public reply is confirming that the writer was a patient or a customer. That is a disclosure in itself. The HHS settlement with a New Jersey provider came from replies to negative reviews. With the setting on, the draft speaks in conditionals and about your process, never about that person.

No. A reply sits under the review. Removal is a separate route: on Google you report it and Google decides, and on Trustpilot you flag it for one of five reasons. Our guides cover both.

Not on Trustpilot. It lists asking a customer to edit or remove a review after you resolved their issue as misuse. Fix the problem, reply in public, and leave the choice to them.

They are a starting point, written to be safe by default. Change the specifics and keep the rule: name no detail about the person. The tool re-checks your edits and warns you if a risky phrase appears. This is general information, not legal advice.

No. The tool runs in your browser. Your choices appear in the page address so you can send a draft to a colleague, and nothing is stored or sent to us.

Yes. Quote the figure, name the original source, and link to this page if you want the working. Every row here carries the publisher, the URL and the date we last checked it, so you can go straight to the primary page. The suggested wording is in the citation block.

Nobody can say, and any figure claiming to know is a guess. What is published is what each platform removed. Trustpilot says it took down 4.5 million reviews as fake in 2024. Google says it blocked or removed 292 million policy-violating reviews in 2025. Neither gives the total those came out of.

Because a rate needs a denominator and Google publishes none. It says it blocked or removed 292 million policy-violating reviews and published more than a billion, which are two counts, not a share of what was submitted. Trustpilot is the only platform here that publishes the percentage itself.

The figures are checked whenever a source publishes an update, and the Last verified date on each source moves with it. Trustpilot's Trust Report is annual, so the 2024 figures stand until the next one lands. There is no 2026 Trust Report yet.

Mostly no, and the page says so on each row. Two of them come from a survey about choosing a healthcare provider. For figures on direct-to-consumer health brands specifically, our DTC health Trustpilot report reads 127 US brand profiles.

Any figure we could not trace to a primary page. That ruled out most of the review statistics in circulation, because they are quoted from a blog that quotes another blog. It also ruled out survey results whose sample size and method were not published.

Yes. It runs in your browser, needs no account and has no limit beyond 200 reviews at a time. Run it as often as you like.

No. The check happens in your browser. The "Send this list for a free audit" button opens our form with the three counts filled in, not the review text. You choose whether to paste reviews into the form.

It is a first pass, not a verdict. It finds text that often breaks a rule, such as an email address or a promo code. It cannot know facts outside the text, like whether the writer was ever a customer. Trustpilot and Google decide every case.

Because harsh is allowed. Trustpilot will not remove a review just because it criticizes the business or includes swear words. Google allows negative experiences described in a respectful manner. The checker only points at text a rule names.

The text points at a rule, but whether it breaks it depends on context. A doctor named in full, a claim of fraud, or a story about a cousin's order are examples. Read the rule page linked in the row before you report it.

Only where the text gives it away, such as "never used them" or "they paid me to write this". Most fake reviews look ordinary, and the proof is in account patterns that only the platform can see. Our guide to fake Trustpilot reviews covers the rest.

No. The PDF link is direct, and the page prints cleanly from your browser.

No. It is our summary of Trustpilot's published help articles, checked on September 20, 2026. The sources are linked on this page. Trustpilot's rules change, so check the live articles.

No. It makes sure a flag names the right rule and has the right evidence. Trustpilot decides every flag.

Neither has an upload for a file like this. Trustpilot asks you to choose a reason and highlight the words, and some reasons ask for documents. Google's report form is short, and its appeal gives you more room. Copy the plain text version into whichever box the platform gives you.

No. The file input reads them on your device, and the page shows them from memory. When you close the page they are gone. Nothing is sent to us or anyone else.

Because you will need it again. An appeal, a second flag, a lawyer or a new staff member all ask the same questions. A dated page with the rule and the facts answers them without anyone having to rebuild it.

Facts the platform cannot see. No order under that name, the date a staff member left, the competitor the review promotes. Keep opinions out: the rule is the argument, and the notes are the proof.

In Trustpilot Business, open Manage reviews, then Service reviews, and export them as a CSV file. Drop that file into the self-audit as it is. It reads Trustpilot's own column names, such as Review Content and Review Stars.

No. The check runs in your browser, in a background worker that has no network code. The page makes no request after it loads. The Get the free audit link carries only three counts, never a review or a name.

Up to 5,000 at a time. It works through them in chunks and shows its progress, so the page stays responsive. If a file has more, it checks the first 5,000 and says how many it left out.

Use Download PDF. It opens your browser's print window with a print layout of the report. Choose Save as PDF as the printer. Nothing is uploaded to make it.

Two ways. Ask every customer for a review, the same way, and never offer anything for it. And report reviews that break one of Google's content policies. New reviews move a big profile slowly; a removed 1-star review moves it twice as hard as a new 5-star one.

Because Trustpilot's TrustScore is not a plain average. Trustpilot says it considers time span and frequency and includes 7 neutral reviews in the calculation. Use the planner for the direction and the size of the change, not the exact score.

Only reviews that break a rule can come down, and the platform decides each one. On most profiles that is a minority of the 1-star reviews. The bulk review checker gives a first read, and the free audit gives a real count.

Your recent average, not your profile average. Look at the last three to six months. A brand that has fixed its shipping problem will see a higher average on new reviews than on old ones, and that is the number that drives the next year.

Trustpilot and Google do, as long as every customer is asked the same way. Yelp does not: its business help says don't ask for reviews at all. Facebook publishes no rule either way on the pages we checked.

Not on any platform that publishes a rule. Trustpilot bars inviting only happy customers, Google bars selectively soliciting positive reviews, and Yelp bars asking at all. The FTC side is in our gating guide.

On Trustpilot, anyone who got a Content Integrity decision in the last 6 months can appeal it once. On Google, a business gets a one-time appeal in the Reviews Management Tool. Yelp and Facebook publish no appeal route on the pages we checked.

Because its help pages on recommendations say little beyond how to report one. We only fill a cell from a platform's own page. Where the page is silent, so is the matrix.

Each source was read in full on September 22, 2026. Platforms change these pages without notice, which is why we keep a policy change log and check the Trustpilot and Google pages every day.

No. We wrote all twelve about fictional businesses. None is a real review, and any phone number uses the 555-01xx range kept for fiction.

Because the rules are about content, not tone. Trustpilot will not remove a review for criticism or swear words, and Google allows negative experiences described in a respectful manner. A rule break is something specific: a code, a phone number, a conflict of interest.

Yes. Paste them into the bulk review checker, which reads each one for the signals the rules name. For one review at a time, does this review qualify? walks through the questions.

Because Trustpilot does not say. Its three policy pages list the dates of past versions, such as Guidelines for Businesses, but publish no changelog. We record the date and say that the page does not list the change, rather than guess.

A scheduled job opens each watched policy page, takes its main text and compares a fingerprint of it with the day before. When the text changes, it opens a ticket with the difference, and we update the rule page and this log. It watches the text, not the design.

A policy change applies to new decisions, and a platform can apply it to reviews already posted. If a review was removed or reinstated around a change, check the rule pages for Trustpilot and Google, which we update from this log.

No. The API and the MCP endpoint are free and open. They are rate limited per IP address: 60 check requests a minute, with bursts of up to 30.

No. The text is checked in memory and returned in the response. It is not stored, and our logs never contain it.

No. It names the rule a review may break and the words that matched. Trustpilot and Google decide every case, and they can see facts the text does not show. For a real count of your own reviews, ask for a free audit.

MIT. You can use it in commercial products, change it and ship it, as long as the copyright and licence notice stay with it.

No. It checks reviews inside your browser with a copy of our open rule check. It has no analytics and no remote code, and its own pages are blocked from making connections. The privacy policy says the same in full.

No. A badge means the text matches a signal for a rule, so it may be worth reporting. Trustpilot decides every flag, and it can see facts the text does not show. Our free audit checks a whole profile properly.

The badges appear on Trustpilot pages only, because that is the only site it has access to. For a Google review, select the text, right-click and choose "Check this review text", then pick Google.

Download the ZIP, unzip it, open chrome://extensions, switch on Developer mode and choose Load unpacked. Pick the unzipped folder. The steps are on this page.