Google review widget: putting Google reviews on your website

Start with what is not there

If you look for a Google review widget the way you would look for a Facebook embed code, you will not find one. We checked the three Business Profile help pages that cover managing reviews, asking for reviews, and the review link. The words website, widget and embed do not appear on any of them.

That absence is the reason every search result for this is a software vendor. It is not that Google forbids showing your reviews. It is that Google never built the thing a business owner is looking for.

The official route, and what it really is

Google Maps Platform ships a pre-built component that renders reviews. Its Place Details Element is described as rendering details such as opening hours, website and reviews for a selected place, and it is billed in the Essentials tier. A companion page, Place Reviews, says it lets you display reviews and ratings from the Places database on your web pages.

Three things follow, and none of them is obvious from the marketing.

It is a developer product. You need a Google Cloud project, an API key and a billing account. There is no copy-and-paste snippet for a non-developer.

It shows the place's reviews as Google returns them. Not your favourites. Filtering reviews at all requires the Advanced Place Details Element, which sits in the Pro tier and is marked preview.

It is metered. You pay per call, so a busy page costs more than a quiet one. That is the trade against a third-party widget's flat monthly fee.

What Google's terms actually say

This is the part that decides whether the shortcut you were considering is a shortcut or a problem.

The Maps Platform terms have a section on misusing the services. Under No Scraping, Google gives examples of what customers will not do, and one of them is:

copy and save business names, addresses, or user reviews

Under No Caching, it says you will not cache Google Maps content except as expressly permitted in the service-specific terms. Go and read that permission and it is narrow: the service terms allow caching latitude and longitude for up to 30 days, and allow caching place IDs. Review text is not on the list.

Google never writes the sentence do not store reviews. What it does is name copying reviews as scraping, and then leave reviews out of everything it permits you to cache. The plain reading of the two together is display live, do not store.

The attribution rules nobody reads

Google's Places API policies are specific, and they apply to what you put on the page.

• Credit the author. Google says you must always credit the author when displaying photos or reviews, and that each one includes an avatar, name and profile link.
• Link back to the review. End users must always have a way to view the individual review on Google Maps, using the link Google provides.
• Say if you filter. Google says to include a clear notice describing how reviews are being ordered and filtered, including any search criteria applied. By default they are ordered by relevance.
• Tell people what a review is. Google says reviews are not verified by Google, and that it checks for and removes fake content when it finds it. It says you should tell end users about its review policy when you display reviews and an average rating.
• Do not touch the wordmark. Do not change the capitalisation of Google Maps, wrap it onto two lines, or translate it.

One point of confusion worth clearing. Google's Geo Guidelines are the brand page people find first, and they say nothing at all about reviews or ratings. They cover maps, Earth and Street View imagery. The review answer is in the Maps Platform terms and the Places policies, not on the brand page.

The 5-star wall, and why it backfires

The reason most brands want a widget is not transparency. It is that the profile says 4.1 and the website would rather say 5.0.

Google's policies allow filtering, as long as you disclose it. So a wall of 5-star reviews with a line saying these are our 5-star reviews is inside the rules. Whether it works is another question.

It does not survive contact with a curious visitor. The Google profile is one tap away, and the gap between your wall and your actual rating is the thing they will remember. The same logic applies on Trustpilot, whose own help page warns that filtering a widget by star rating means visitors will not see the full picture of your feedback. Our guide to Trustpilot's TrustBox options covers that setting.

If the rating itself is the problem, a widget is a screen in front of it. Two things move the number. Asking every customer, inside the rules, which our guide to getting more Google reviews covers. And getting the reviews that break a Google policy taken down, which is what we do. Our Google rating calculator shows what each route costs in reviews.

How to add Google reviews to your website, step by step

To add Google reviews to your website, show them live from Google, credit each author, and link each review back to Google Maps. Here is the order to work in, using Google's own rules from the sections above.

1. Pick the route. The official Maps Platform component, a third-party widget, or a plain link to your profile.
2. For the official route, set up Google Cloud. You need a project, an API key and a billing account, then the Place Details Element for your business.
3. Credit every review. Show the author's name, avatar and profile link, as the Places API policies require.
4. Link each review back to Google Maps, using the link Google provides.
5. Say how you filter, if you show only some reviews, in a notice next to them.
6. Do not paste in review text. Google's Maps Platform terms name copying and saving user reviews as scraping.

If you have no developer, the last option in the next section, a link to your profile beside your real rating, takes five minutes and breaks no rule.

Choosing between the options

The official component. Correct by construction, live data, per-call billing, needs a developer. The right answer for a team that has one.

A third-party widget. A monthly fee, a snippet, and someone else's judgement about the terms above. Before you buy, ask the vendor two questions: does it store review text on its servers, and does it filter by rating without saying so. Both answers are in Google's rules, and a vendor that cannot answer them clearly is telling you something.

A screenshot. Quick, and it is the copy that the terms name. It also goes stale the day someone leaves a new review.

For a health brand there is one more reason to be careful. A review that names a condition or a medication is data you should think twice about republishing on your own site, whatever Google's terms allow. Our GLP-1 page covers the shape of those reviews.

Nothing at all. Underrated. A link to your Google profile, next to your real rating, costs nothing and cannot be accused of anything. Our page on Google review management tools covers the software side if you want monitoring rather than display.

To ask for new ones, start with your Google review link, and how to share it.

We do this work for clients through our Google review removal service, and the price per removed review is published.