If you are thinking about whether to buy Google reviews for your business in Spain, you are not the only one. You open a garage or a hair salon in Gràcia, you have six reviews and the place across the street has three hundred. Someone offers you fifty five-star reviews for not much money. Here is exactly what you risk — according to Google's own policy and Spanish law, not a forum thread — and what to do instead to reach those fifty reviews for real.

Can you buy Google reviews?

There are websites that sell them. What you cannot do is buy them without risk, for three reasons.

The first is that Google actively hunts for them. According to its own blog (April 2026), in 2025 its systems and analysts blocked or removed more than 292 million reviews that broke its policies, and took down more than 13 million fake Business Profiles. This is not a theoretical threat; it is an industrial operation.

The second is the law. In Spain, since May 2022, commissioning fake reviews is an unfair commercial practice named explicitly in the statute.

The third: you are buying from someone whose business is deception. Nothing guarantees what they will do with your profile once you stop paying.

What Google says: the fake engagement policy

Google calls it fake engagement and bans it in its Maps content policy. It explicitly prohibits:

Reviews or ratings that are paid for, in cash or in kind.
Offering incentives in exchange for a review: payments, discounts, free products or services.
Selectively asking for positive reviews or discouraging negative ones. In other words, asking only your happy customers counts too.
Pressuring customers to write one while they are on the premises, or a business asking its staff to collect a set number of reviews.

What it does allow, in so many words, is asking customers to share their genuine experience without offering anything in return. That is the whole margin, and it is enough, as you will see below.

What happens if Google catches you

According to Google's help page on profile restrictions, if it detects fake engagement on your profile it can:

Stop you receiving new reviews for a period.
Stop showing the reviews and rating you already had for a period, genuine ones included.
Display a warning on your profile telling anyone who looks that fake reviews were removed.

It emails you first, and you can appeal. But think about the third point: someone finding you for the first time does not see your stars, they see a notice saying you cheated. The exact opposite of what you wanted to buy.

What Spanish law says

Spain's Unfair Competition Act (Ley 3/1991 de Competencia Desleal), amended by Royal Decree-Law 24/2021 (in force since 28 May 2022), treats as a misleading practice, in article 27.8, adding or commissioning another person to post fake consumer reviews, or distorting real ones, to promote a service. Article 19.2 says these practices are unfair to consumers «in all cases and in any circumstances»: nobody has to prove that a specific person was misled.

What are the consequences? Through the civil courts, article 32 allows claims to have the practice declared unfair, stopped and corrected, and for damages: a competitor, for example, can bring them. Administratively, unfair practices towards consumers are also consumer-law infringements, sanctioned by each region's consumer authority, with fines that depend on how serious the case is.

This is not legal advice; if you already have a specific problem, speak to your lawyer or your gestoría (the accountancy and admin firm most Spanish small businesses use).

The grey areas that also count

Paying a website is clear-cut. What many businesses do without realising it breaks the rules is this:

«10% off if you leave us a review». That is an incentive. Banned, even if the review is honest.
Prize draws among people who leave a review. Same problem.
Asking only happy customers. Google calls this selective solicitation.
Reviews from your partner, your cousins or your team. They are not customers; it is not a genuine experience.
Swapping reviews with other businesses in the neighbourhood or a WhatsApp group. Just as fake as buying them.
Targets for staff: «five reviews each a week». Explicitly banned.

If you do any of these, stop today.

What to do instead: real reviews, step by step

Getting genuine reviews is slower, but not hard. What usually fails is asking.

1. Keep the direct link to hand

From your Google Business Profile you can copy the link for asking for reviews and generate a QR code. We go through it step by step in how to create a Google review QR code and link. Five minutes, once.

2. Ask everyone, at the end, with nothing in return

By WhatsApp, the same day. A message you can copy:

Hi Marta, thanks for coming in today. If you have a minute, it really helps us if you say on Google how it went, whatever you thought: [link]. Best, Jordi.

«Whatever you thought» matters: you are asking for an experience, not five stars. And you send it to everyone, not just the people who left smiling.

3. Put the QR code where people expect it

At the till, on the receipt, in the waiting area. Not in the customer's face while they pay: that is pressure. More ideas in how to get more Google reviews.

4. Reply to all of them

According to BrightLocal (2026 survey of consumers in the United States; there is no equivalent study for Spain), 88% would use a business that replies to all its reviews, against 47% for one that replies to none. Reply to the bad ones too, calmly.

5. If a fake review lands against you

Do not offset it with fake ones in your favour. Report it through Google: we explain how in how to remove a Google review.

Doing it yourself: the full sum

Quick, and once. Dropping any incentive or prize draw, copying the link, printing the QR code and saving the WhatsApp message in a note: an hour at most. It is yours, it is free, and you should do it whatever happens.

Slow. Making all that lead somewhere. A customer who reads your reviews then wants to see your hours, prices and how to book; if your profile links to no page, or to one nobody updates, they go to the place across the street. Building that page is a long weekend, or an agency quote, or a nephew.

What never ends. Sending the message every day, replying to every review, checking every week whether your rating is slipping or whether the business on the next street is overtaking you. Ten minutes a day and the half hour a month nobody finds. That is why almost everyone gives up, and why the temptation to buy comes back.

What we do

wiweb does not sell reviews or write them for you. What we do is the slow part and the part that never ends.

Your page, free: one page made of widgets, published at yourbusiness.wiweb.me, with your live Google rating, opening hours with open-or-closed-now, services with prices, a map and a booking button. Legal texts and cookie banner included. No card, no expiry. So someone who arrives via your reviews finds something on the other side.
Crece (€9/month): your own domain and a monthly check of how Google sees you, with the report by email.
Pro (€24/month): the check becomes weekly, we watch your reviews and your position against up to eight competitors, and technical issues fix themselves. Any new text waits for your approval.

The details of each plan are on pricing, and how it works on how it works. But the honest part is this: no plan, ours included, buys you reviews or a date by which you will have three hundred. They come from asking well, asking everyone, for months.

Create your website free

FAQ

Is it illegal to buy Google reviews in Spain?

Commissioning fake reviews to promote your service is an unfair practice under article 27.8 of the Unfair Competition Act since May 2022. It can lead to civil claims from a competitor and to sanctions from consumer authorities.

Does Google detect bought reviews?

It detects many: in 2025 it blocked or removed more than 292 million reviews that broke its policies. When it finds them on a profile, it can pause new reviews, hide existing ones and show a warning to visitors.

Can I offer a discount in exchange for a review?

No. Google bans any incentive for a review, including discounts, gifts or prize draws, even if the opinion is honest. You can ask for one, from all your customers, without giving anything in return.

What if my competitor buys reviews?

Report the ones you believe are fake on Google Maps. If the harm is serious, the Unfair Competition Act allows civil claims: talk to your lawyer.

Buy Google reviews? What you risk in Spain and what to do instead