Why It's a Really Bad Idea to Buy Google Reviews

Published September 21, 2026

Oh my days.

You are playing with fire here. Don't do it!

This is Part Two of a story that started with me wondering why some competing SEO companies had so many more Google reviews than Tucson SEO Pros.

That curiosity eventually led to questionable addresses, a couple of field trips, two SEO companies disappearing from Google Maps and my completely unsolicited campaign for Justice for Gretchen.

But remember, none of this started with addresses.

It started with reviews.

So let's go back to the beginning.

Why Buy Reviews?

Well, let's say you already have a public-facing address that isn't actually public-facing. You've manipulated your business hours so you're open after most of your competitors.

You're really feeling yourself. Now what's an enterprising hustler to do?

Reviews!

You know that the words customers use in Google reviews can provide Google with additional context about what your business does and where it does it.

Pure gold!

If somebody reviews your roofing company and naturally mentions that you repaired their tile roof in Oro Valley, that's relevant information. Another customer mentions a job in Sahuarita. Someone else talks about a roof repair in Catalina Foothills.

And baby, you're cooking again.

There's just one annoying problem.

Real Customers Insist on Writing Like Human Beings

Your customers aren't picking up what you're laying down. You carefully selected a business name like Tucson Roofers, and some jerk leaves you a five-star review saying:

"Bob was great. Showed up on time and did an awesome job. Highly recommend."

Bob?

BOB?

My business is called Tucson Roofers! Could you at least mention a roof? Tile? Shingles? Rubberized coating? Tucson? Oro Valley?

Give me something here!

But that's what real reviews tend to look like. People write about people. They mention whatever stood out to them. They misspell things. They ramble. They leave two sentences. Sometimes they leave two words.

They generally do not sit down and compose a beautifully optimized paragraph containing your preferred service, city, neighborhood and business name. It's almost like they aren't thinking about your local SEO strategy at all.

The nerve.

So What Do You Do, Player?

Maybe you start small.

Friends. Family. Employees. Anybody whose phone you can get your hands on. You know five people who owe you a favor. And unlike those pesky customers, you can make sure these reviews contain exactly what you want them to contain.

That was cool and all. But five reviews?

You need more reviews!

That's when somebody discovers that there are people on the internet perfectly willing to solve this problem for you. For a very reasonable price, naturally.

You're not stupid. (You are.) You know that suddenly receiving 50 five-star reviews would look ridiculous and would get you busted tripping Google's automated systems. So you don't do that.

You drip them in. Slowly. Naturally. One here. Another there.

You boil the frog, as they say. And these aren't your grandmother's reviews. These things are beautiful. Perfect service keyword. Perfect location. Perfect problem. Perfect solution.

Five stars. Every. Single. Time.

And Holy Crap, It Works

Now your Maps visibility starts exploding.

You're appearing all over the place. You're accumulating reviews faster than competitors that have been operating considerably longer than you have.

You are absolutely stomping them. You are a visionary entrepreneur.

Maybe you're so pleased with the results that you start bragging about your incredible Google Maps performance.

Maybe you even imply that you could do the same thing for your clients. (I really hope you didn't do that.)

Because there's a problem.

Your Empire Is Built on Lies

Eventually somebody looks at your reviews and thinks:

"Man, I wish I could get reviews like that."

And then they look a little closer. Wait a second. These reviews are remarkably well written. They're remarkably well optimized. A surprising number of the reviewers have pretty people profile pictures like they were snagged straight from Insta.

And a lot of them have something else in common.

They've left three reviews. Five reviews. Eight reviews. Not hundreds. Not years of reviewing every restaurant, dentist and Home Depot they wander into. Just a small collection of strangely specific reviews.

So the nosy person clicks.

That's where things can get interesting.

Maybe the person who loved your Tucson roofing company also loved a digital marketing agency in North Dakota. And a plumber somewhere else. And a mechanic in Karachi.

Well, obviously we've discovered a group of wealthy international travelers with extraordinarily diverse purchasing habits.

Or...

Those reviews might not be real.

And Now Your Competitor Is Laughing

This is where the entire strategy changes. Because your competitors aren't necessarily looking at your reviews the way customers are. They're looking at them thinking:

Why should I have to play by the rules if you're making stuff up?

And now you've given them something to investigate. One suspicious review doesn't prove anything. Neither does a weird profile picture.

Neither does somebody reviewing businesses in multiple cities. People travel. People move. People have family in other states. Strange things happen.

But patterns are patterns.

And once somebody starts pulling on that string, they may find considerably more than you expected them to find.

The beautiful thing about fake reviews is also their biggest weakness.

They're public. Anybody can read them. Anybody can click the profiles or if your reviews guy leaves them all private, that is also information. Anybody can look at what else those accounts reviewed.

Your brilliant local SEO strategy is sitting right there in public waiting for somebody looking too closely at those maps packs to get curious.

Ask me how I know.

Google Really, Really Doesn't Like Fake Reviews

And this isn't some obscure technicality buried deep in Google's guidelines.

Fake engagement attacks the basic usefulness of the review system.

Google needs people to believe that a five-star review represents the opinion of somebody who actually interacted with the business.

Once that stops being true, the entire system becomes considerably less useful. So when Google determines that reviews violate its policies, those reviews can disappear.

And depending on what's happening with the Business Profile itself, the consequences can become considerably more painful than simply watching your review count drop.

This is where your brilliant strategy for dominating the local 3-pack can blow up spectacularly.

At best, the thing you paid for disappears. At worst, you have a much larger Google Business Profile problem. And all because you couldn't stand watching Bob write:

"Great job. Nice guy."

The Better Your Scheme Works, the More Dangerous It Gets

This is the same problem we talked about in Part One.

The better the trick works, the more dependent you become on it. Your lies visionary optimization strategy no one has ever thought of could become a liability later, but for now, those reviews are helping establish your reputation. They're helping your conversion rate. They're contributing to your local visibility. You're calling yourself the fastest growing SEO company in Tucson.

You're showing prospective clients screenshots of your Maps results. Maybe you're using your own performance as proof that your local SEO techniques work.

Now imagine Google removes them. Or worse.

The clever little shortcut isn't little anymore.

You've built part of the business on top of it. That's the problem with gaming Google. You don't just have to fool Google today.

You have to keep fooling Google forever.

Seen It Happen

Remember how this entire story started? I had ten reviews. I looked at competitors with considerably more and thought:

"Man, I need more reviews."

Then I started clicking. Nine days later, two SEO companies had disappeared from Google Maps. Do I feel bad about it? No, I feel pretty damn good about it.

Did I personally cause every bit of that?

No idea.

Google doesn't tell me exactly what happened internally, and I'm not going to claim things I can't prove. But I can tell you what I observed. I saw patterns that made me suspicious. I followed them. I reported what I believed violated Google's rules. And your competitor can do the same to you if you're paying for reviews.

And about two days ago, both businesses I had been looking at disappeared from the Maps results entirely.

Maybe they come back tomorrow. Maybe they don't. That's Google's decision.

But if you're asking whether I think buying reviews is a clever way to improve your local SEO? Refer back to the title. It's really, really dumb.

Build Something You Can Defend

Ask actual customers for reviews.

Make it easy for them. Send them the link. Remind them once if you need to. Implement an automated system that texts them immediately after a job is done. Hell, let us help you do that.

And then let them write whatever they want to write.

Maybe they mention your service. Maybe they mention Tucson. Maybe they give you the perfect keyword-rich review you've always dreamed about. Or maybe they write:

"Bob was great."

Take the five stars and say thank you.

Because a boring real review is infinitely more valuable than a perfect fake one that becomes evidence against you later.

Your Google Business Profile is too important to build on something that can unravel because one nosy competitor started clicking reviewer profiles on a Sunday night.

Trust me.

That can happen.

Justice for Gretchen.