Dispensary Google reviews, by the rules

Reviews are the part of dispensary local SEO that everyone sells and almost nobody quotes rules for. The pitch is usually a number: get to a hundred reviews, keep fifteen coming a month, beat the store down the road on velocity. We sold a version of that ourselves until we sat down and read what Google actually publishes.

What follows is every review rule Google publishes that bears on a dispensary, quoted and linked, read on August 31, 2026. It includes the rule most review tactics sold to cannabis retail quietly break, and it includes a correction to a claim that was on a dozen of our own pages this morning.

What Google says actually counts

Two Google pages bear on this, and it is worth reading both because most advice contradicts them.

On ranking, Google's local ranking page puts reviews under prominence, which it says is "based on info like how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have," and adds that "more reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking."

On the star score itself, Google is blunter:

The review score is the average of all ratings published on Google for that place or business.

Google Business Profile Help, Understand review scores for local places & businesses

An average of all ratings. No decay, no window, no extra weight on the recent ones. And a timing detail worth knowing before you panic: Google says that after a new review lands, "it may take up to 2 weeks to get an updated review score." A store that runs a review push and checks its rating the next morning will conclude nothing happened.

The correction we owe you

Until today, our money page said this, in Google's name: "Google weighs review recency and velocity, not just your star total, so a slow trickle beats a big static number." Variations of it appeared across roughly a dozen pages on this site.

We cannot source it. Google's ranking page names count and ratings and does not mention recency. Google's score page describes a plain average. That is two independent statements, neither of which supports the claim, which is about as close to a refutation as a company that keeps its algorithm confidential ever gets.

To be fair to the belief rather than just to ourselves: review velocity is widely held across local SEO, it is plausible, and Google's silence is silence rather than a denial. What is not defensible is putting it in Google's mouth. So the pages have been corrected to say what Google documents, and this paragraph exists so the change is on the record rather than quietly edited in.

How to ask, in Google's own words

Google publishes a sanctioned request mechanism, which is the part most operators do not know exists. You can generate a review link or a QR code from inside your profile, and Google tells you where to put them:

• On your receipts.
• In thank you emails.
• At the end of a chat interaction.
• Printed and displayed in your store.

One practical note: Google says the QR code "can only be generated on a computer browser, not on mobile devices," which trips people up who try to do it from the phone behind the counter.

And the permission that nervous operators miss, stated plainly by Google: merchants may "solicit or encourage the posting of content that does represent a genuine experience, without offering incentives to do so or attempting to influence the rating or the contents of the review." Asking is allowed. Asking everyone, the same way, with nothing attached, is the whole method.

The four things you cannot do

Google's prohibited content policy sets out four separate prohibitions on soliciting reviews. Most review tactics sold to dispensaries break at least one.

1. No incentives, in either direction

Offering "free or discounted goods or services" in exchange for a review is "strictly prohibited," and the rule explicitly covers paying someone to post a review, to change one, and to remove a negative one. For a dispensary this is not a small risk. The enforcement you cannot afford is at profile level, and unlike other retailers you have no ad budget to fall back on while you appeal.

2. No gating

Google does not allow merchants to "discourage or prohibit negative reviews, or selectively solicit positive reviews from customers." That single clause outlaws the entire category of tools that survey a customer first and only route the happy ones to Google. If a vendor's product diagram has a fork in it, that fork is the violation.

3. No pressure on the premises

Merchants "should not require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises." Read that next to Google's own suggestion to print and display a QR code in your store, and the real line becomes clear: passive is fine, pressure is not. A code on the counter and a link on the receipt are Google's ideas. A budtender standing over someone while they type is the thing the rule describes.

4. No staff quotas, and no asking for specific content

This is the one that catches well-run retail operations, because it reads like ordinary performance management. Google specifically prohibits "merchants requesting that staff solicit a certain number of reviews" and "merchants requesting that staff solicit reviews that include specific content, including content that identifies a staff member." Merchants also may not "request that specific content be included" in a review at all.

So a leaderboard of budtenders by reviews earned, a monthly review target per shift, or a card that says "mention your budtender by name" are all inside what the policy prohibits, however normal they feel on a sales floor.

Negative reviews, and what Google will actually remove

The most common request we get about reviews is to make a bad one go away. Google's answer is narrow and worth reading before you spend money on someone promising otherwise.

You can report any review, but only those that violate Google policies are eligible for removal. Do not report a review just because you disagree with it or dislike it. Google doesn't get involved in conflict between businesses and customers.

Google Business Profile Help, Report inappropriate reviews on your Business Profile

Policy violations are things like spam, profanity, off-topic content, conflicts of interest, and personal information. An accurate review from a genuinely unhappy customer is none of those, and no vendor can have it removed. Google says evaluation "typically takes several days" and you can track the outcome in the Reviews Management Tool. If you are being targeted by a negative-review extortion scam, which does happen in cannabis retail, Google runs a separate reporting path for that specifically.

Google also argues against the instinct that drives most removal requests, in its guidance on getting reviews: "Honest and balanced reviews can help potential customers decide. A mix of positive and negative feedback often feels more trustworthy."

Replying, and the two cautions specific to cannabis

Google recommends replying and gives usable guidance: be professional, keep it short, personalize it, respond promptly, and spend your effort on reviews where you can share a helpful update instead of sending an identical thank you to everyone. For negative ones, Google says to avoid personal attacks, never share a reviewer's private information, be honest about limitations, and apologize when appropriate.

Two things matter more for a dispensary than for most businesses. First, Google says to be "conversational, not promotional" and to avoid using a reply to offer deals or promotions, which is the same restriction that governs Posts and photos under the restricted-goods rules covered in the Business Profile guide. Second, a reply that confirms what somebody bought discloses something sensitive about a named person. Thank them for the visit; do not recite the order.

Why reviews vanish, including after a reinstatement

Google lists several reasons a review might not be on your profile. Moderation can delay one by a few days. Recently merged profiles take a few days to show both sets. Reviews removed for policy violations "won't be restored."

Two entries on that list deserve a dispensary's attention.

Google says it "might temporarily disable user-created content, including reviews, for certain Business Profiles or business categories to protect business owners." The only worked example Google gives is schools. There is no evidence Google has applied this to cannabis and no published list of affected categories, so this is a mechanism worth knowing rather than a prediction.

The second is concrete and chains directly to suspension risk: "Sometimes reviews might be removed after a Business Profile is reinstated." Winning your appeal does not guarantee your review history comes back with the listing. If you needed one more argument for treating the profile as a compliance surface rather than a place to experiment with a keyword-stuffed name, that is it: a suspension can cost you the corpus you spent two years building, not just a fortnight of visibility.

The compliance layer Google does not cover

Google's rules govern the content of a review request. They say nothing about the channel, and the channel is where the other regulators live.

SMS is the most common review-request channel sold to dispensaries, and it is governed by the FCC rather than by Google: marketing texts require prior express consent. A review request that is compliant with every Google policy can still be an unlawful text if the customer never agreed to receive messages.

There is a second question we are not going to answer for you, because nobody has answered it in public. Several states regulate cannabis advertising in ways that could plausibly reach a review request sent by email or SMS, through age-audience thresholds and license-number requirements. No state regulator we read addresses review solicitation directly. That does not mean you are clear; it means the question is open and belongs to your counsel rather than to an SEO agency. Anyone who tells you flatly that a review request is or is not regulated advertising in your state is guessing.

What Google does not publish

• Whether recency or velocity affects ranking. Two Google statements bear on it and neither mentions recency. It remains undocumented rather than formally denied.
• How many reviews wins a given market. No threshold, no benchmark, no per-market figure. Any number you are quoted is an observation dressed as a rule.
• Whether replying affects ranking. Google recommends replying and frames it as customer trust. It never claims it moves position.
• Whether cannabis is a category eligible for disabled reviews. The mechanism exists, schools are the only published example, and Google publishes no list.
• How long removal decisions take. "Typically several days," with no ceiling and no published appeal turnaround.

The useful replacement for the missing benchmark is comparative rather than absolute: count the reviews and ratings of the stores currently sitting in the pack in the places your customers actually search from. That number is real, it is specific to you, and it changes as they move. It is also what our audit measures, rather than handing you a target somebody made up.

The working checklist

1. Generate your Google review link and QR code from a desktop browser, not a phone.
2. Put them where Google says: receipts, thank-you emails, end of chat, and printed in store.
3. Ask every customer identically. No screening, no incentive, no script asking for particular content or naming staff.
4. Delete any review quota or leaderboard from staff targets and comp plans.
5. Check your SMS consent before any texted request. That is an FCC question, not a Google one.
6. Reply to reviews promptly and specifically, without offers and without naming what anyone bought.
7. Report only policy-violating reviews, and use the extortion path if that is what you are facing.
8. Wait two weeks before judging whether a change moved your score.
9. Benchmark against the stores in your pack, not against a number from a blog.

Frequently asked questions