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Google review policy checker
Paste a review. See which of Google’s published content-policy clauses it breaks, what a report has to say to be actionable, and whether it is one of the many reviews nobody can move.
The category you pick decides the report
When an owner reports a review, Google asks them to pick a reason from a short list. That choice decides almost everything about what happens next, and it is usually made in a hurry by someone who is angry. Pick Off-topic for a review that is really a conflict of interest and the person handling it checks whether the review is about your business, finds that it is, and closes the case. The review broke a rule. It was reported under the wrong one.
That is the gap this tool exists to close. It reads the text against every published clause at once and tells you which one the wording actually supports, so the report you file names the rule Google can check rather than the one that feels most unfair.
It matters more than it sounds, because a report you have already lost is much harder to win the second time. Re-submitting the same wording under the same category reliably comes back the same way, so the first filing is the one that counts.
Every bad review falls into one of three piles
The checker sorts into the same three the audit does, and the sort is the whole decision.
Tier 1 · the clearest match
The breach is visible in the review itself. A link to another business, a phone number, a slur, a political rant, an address. Whoever reads the report can confirm it without leaving the page, which is what makes these the cases worth spending a filing on.
Tier 2 · real, but you have to prove it
An ex-employee, a competitor, someone who was never a customer, a bare one star from an account with no history. There is a clause to name, but the fact that proves it lives in your systems or on the reviewer’s profile, not in the words. These turn on how precisely the report describes something Google can go and check.
Tier 3 · protected
A real customer describing a real visit. Harsh, one-sided, unfair, wrong about the details. Still protected, and deliberately so. In the listings we audit, most negative reviews land here, and telling you that plainly is the most useful thing this page does.
What a text box cannot see
Publishing the limits of a tool is not a disclaimer, it is the difference between a tool and a lead magnet. Reading one review in isolation misses the signals that most often prove a review was never genuine:
- The same text posted under two or more reviewer accounts, which is the single cleanest case there is and is invisible from one review.
- A reviewer profile with no other contributions, or one whose entire history is one-star reviews of businesses in a single industry.
- A cluster of reviews arriving inside the same hour, after months of nothing.
- A review that describes a location, a service or a price you have never offered, which only reads as wrong if you know the listing.
- Whether the person ever appears in your own booking, till or patient records.
Those need the whole listing, which is what the free audit reads. The box above is the right tool when you have one review in front of you and want to know whether it is worth your time.
Questions about the checker
Is the Google review policy checker free?
Yes, and there is no account, no email gate and no usage limit. The check runs in your own browser, so the review text never reaches a server at all.
Does a match mean Google will remove the review?
No. A match means the review appears to break a clause Google publishes, which is what makes a report worth filing. Google decides every case, and a clean policy match filed with vague evidence still gets declined.
What if nothing matches?
Then the review is almost certainly protected content, and reporting it spends a filing for nothing. A real customer describing a real visit stays up however harsh the wording. The useful move there is a public reply written for the next reader, not a removal request.
Can it tell if a review is fake?
Not from text alone. What it reads is whether the text breaks a rule. The signals that actually indicate a fabricated review live outside the text: the same wording posted under two accounts, a reviewer profile with no other history, a cluster of reviews arriving in the same hour. Those need the full listing, which is what the free audit reads.
Why does the star rating change the result?
Because the same word means opposite things at one star and five. "They gave me a free upgrade" on a five-star review describes an incentivised exchange, which is what Google's rule on incentivised and biased reviews covers. The word "free" in a one-star complaint is usually someone saying they were promised something free and then charged. An earlier version of this engine flagged the second one, which is exactly the kind of overclaim that gets a filing rejected.
Do you store what I paste in?
There is nothing to store. The page ships the rules to your browser and runs them there. No request is made, so there is no review text on our side to keep or lose.
Using this on your own site
The checker is free to link to and free to reference. If you run a trade association page, a forum answer or a resource list for local business owners, point people straight at repushield.app/tools/google-review-policy-checker. No attribution required and nothing behind an email form.
The clauses it checks against
Each one is a rule Google publishes, with the quoted policy text, what qualifies, and the mistake that gets it rejected.
Straight answers to the questions around this
Short pages, one question each, written so the answer stands on its own.
How this plays out in your trade
The same clause gets abused differently depending on the business. These cover the patterns we see most often per trade.
RepuShield is not affiliated with Google or Alphabet. Google decides every removal. How we score reviews.