How to get your Google review link

Google already hands you a review link for free. You do not need to buy a generator. What almost nobody does — and what actually changes the number of reviews you collect — is testing that link on a real customer's phone and tracking where each review came from.

1. Sign in as the business owner and search your own business name on Google, or open the Business Profile manager. You should see the owner's dashboard above the listing.
2. Tap "Ask for reviews". Google returns a short link in the form g.page/r/…. Copy it. That is your review link — nothing else needed.
3. Test it signed out. Open it on a phone that is not signed in as the owner. You should land on the star-rating box for your business, not a search page and not your own dashboard.
4. Give each placement its own code. One trackable link for the counter QR, one for the follow-up text, one for the invoice footer. Same destination, separate attribution.

Most tools sold as a "Google review link generator" resolve your Place ID and rebuild the same URL Google gave you. Some add a landing page that asks how the visit went before showing the Google button — that is review-gating, and it puts your listing at risk. Skip those.

• Worth having: tracking per poster, card and message
• Worth having: a short, readable link that fits in an SMS
• Avoid: any page that filters unhappy customers away from Google
• Avoid: links that promise a reward for a 5-star rating

If you want to create a Google review link without any third-party tool, there are exactly two ways — and they end at the same review box.

1. The dashboard way (use this one). Sign in to your Google Business Profile, tap "Ask for reviews", and copy the short g.page/r/… link. Done — this is the official link and it never expires.
2. The Place ID way (the fallback). If the button is missing — common for service-area businesses mid-verification — look up your Place ID with Google's Place ID finder, then append it to search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=. This generates the identical write-a-review box.

Whichever way you create it, the link itself is only step one. Test it on a signed-out phone, then pair it with the wording that gets it answered — the copy-paste versions live in how to ask customers for Google reviews.

• Customer is signed out of a Google account
• Opened inside an in-app browser (Instagram, Facebook)
• Listing is unverified, so reviews cannot be posted
• Link was copied from the owner view and points at the dashboard
• Duplicate listings — the review lands on the wrong one

The link only works if it reaches the customer while the visit is still fresh. Text is the default: one short message, sent the same day, with the link on its own line so it stays tappable. Email suits invoice and B2B follow-ups, and a printed QR code covers walk-ins at the counter.

1. Pick the channel by moment. Same-day SMS for anyone whose number you already have, email when the invoice or receipt goes out, printed QR for walk-ins who have left.
2. Send one link, alone on its line. A link buried mid-sentence stops looking tappable on a phone.
3. Send from a number they recognise. Messages from your business number get opened; shortcodes get ignored.
4. Tag the send. Use a campaign-tagged version of the link per channel so you know whether the text, the email or the counter card earned the review.
5. One reminder, then stop. Three to four days later, one short nudge. Never a third message.

• SMS within hours of the visit — highest response rate
• Put the link on its own line, never mid-sentence
• Email for invoices, B2B clients and longer context
• QR code at the counter or on the receipt for walk-ins
• One reminder three to four days later, then stop

Ready-made wording for each channel lives in the review request scripts.

A QR code is simply your review link in printable form. There is nothing to buy: if you already have the g.page/r/… link, you are four minutes from a code on the counter.

1. Copy your review link. Use the exact link from "Ask for reviews" — not a search result URL and not the owner dashboard URL.
2. Generate the code. Paste the link into any QR generator, or create a Kleos QR campaign so each printed placement gets its own trackable code.
3. Download it large. Export a PNG at 1000px or wider (or SVG for print). Small exports blur when a printer scales them up and stop scanning.
4. Add a one-line prompt. "Scan to review us on Google" beats an unlabelled square. Tell people it takes 30 seconds.
5. Print and scan a test copy. Use a phone that is not signed in as the owner. Keep the code at least 2 cm × 2 cm on cards, 5 cm on posters, with white space around it.
6. Place one code per spot. Counter, receipt, business card, window decal — separate codes so scan data tells you which one earns reviews.

• Payment terminal — highest scan rate for retail and food
• Business card or leave-behind — best for mobile and home services
• Receipt or invoice footer — print space you already pay for
• Table tent, window decal or A-frame — passive, steady trickle
• Never a code that leads to a 'how was your visit?' filter page

Kleos QR campaigns report total and unique scans, time of day, device and rough location per code, so you can print more of whatever works and retire the rest.

A review link with no attribution tells you nothing about what to do more of. Kleos QR campaigns give each printed placement its own code and report total and unique scans, day and time, device type and rough location — so the counter card and the receipt footer stop competing in the dark.

Google strips unknown parameters from a g.page/r/… link, so you cannot tag the review URL itself. Attribution has to happen one hop earlier: a trackable campaign link (or QR campaign) records the scan, then redirects to the review link. Same customer experience, but you finally know which poster earned the review.

1. Create one campaign per placement. Counter card, receipt footer, business card, window decal. Name them for the physical spot, not the month.
2. Set the destination to your review link. Paste the exact g.page/r/… URL as the redirect target so the last hop is always Google's review box.
3. Tag the campaign URL with UTMs. Use the naming convention below so your analytics groups scans without manual cleanup.
4. Generate the QR from the campaign URL — not from the raw review link — and export at 1000px or wider.
5. Scan the printed copy yourself. Confirm the scan is recorded and that you land on the review box on a signed-out phone.
6. Review after two weeks. Compare scans per placement, reprint the winner, retire anything with near-zero scans.

• utm_source = the placement (counter-card, receipt, business-card)
• utm_medium = qr for print, sms or email for messages
• utm_campaign = the run, e.g. google-reviews-2026
• utm_content = the variant you are A/B testing
• Lowercase, hyphens, no spaces — analytics treats case as distinct

Replace {{campaign_code}} with the code Kleos issues when you create a QR campaign; scan counts, time of day, device and rough location then show up per placement in your dashboard.

The link is the delivery mechanism; the ask is what earns the review.

Pair it with the review request scripts and the full how to get more Google reviews playbook.