When ad platforms and payment providers limit what your legal business can do, search results do much of the talking for you.

This is how to check them the way Google’s own raters do, and what to do with each kind of result.

Something usually prompts the search. Enquiries dip, a payment provider opens a review, a hostile post appears, or a listing turns up that you never created.

A business outside these categories can answer that with an ad campaign. Owners in restricted categories have fewer options. Adult services and agencies, CBD, vape shops, firearms retail, gambling, legal cannabis and dating all face limits from ad platforms and payment providers. Which of these a business may lawfully offer depends on where it trades. Organic results and other people’s pages are left to describe the business.

The audit below uses free tools and a simple log. Where a rule applies only in one country, that country is named.

How Google’s Raters Look Up a Reputation

Google publishes guidelines for its search quality raters, and the current edition is dated 11 September 2025. The document says no single rating can directly change where a page appears, but it does show what Google treats as reputation.

According to the guidelines, a website’s reputation “is based on the experience of real users and the opinions of people who are experts.” Raters are told to be sceptical of what a business says about itself. They look for independent reviews, news articles and recommendations by experts instead. A company’s own social media pages do not count as independent sources.

Three other points matter when you read your own results:

• Any business can get a few negative reviews, and the guidelines call this normal and expected.
• Raters should read what reviews say, “not just the number or star rating.”
• Small websites may have little or no reputation information, which “is not indicative of high or low quality.”

The guidelines treat credible, convincing reports of fraud and financial wrongdoing as evidence of an extremely negative reputation. Those are the results to find first.

Set Up a Clean Search

Open a private browser window and stay signed out of Google, so you see roughly what a stranger sees. List every name someone might type: your trading name, legal company name, domain, main phone number, and the owner’s public name if they front the business.

Then start a spreadsheet with four columns: the search, the result, the kind of result and the action. If you trade in more than one country, repeat the searches on that country’s version of Google.

Run the Searches a Stranger Would Run

Google’s Search Help page “Refine Google searches” documents several operators. Quotation marks find exact matches and a minus sign excludes a word. site: searches one site, and before: and after: filter by date. Leave no space between an operator and the word after it.

Section 3.3.3 of the rater guidelines uses these operators in example searches such as [ibm -site:ibm.com] and [ibm reviews -site:ibm.com]. Swap in your own name and domain:

• yourbusiness -site:yourdomain.com shows what others say about you.
• “yourdomain.com” -site:yourdomain.com finds pages that mention your web address.
• yourbusiness reviews -site:yourdomain.com, then again with “complaints” and “scam”.
• site:reddit.com “your business name” finds forum threads that name you.
• yourbusiness site:en.wikipedia.org checks for an encyclopedia entry, as the guidelines suggest.
• Add after: and a date to any search to see recent pages only.

Check the Images, News and Maps results too, and note what Google suggests as you type. Google’s Search Central page says the site: operator’s list of results “is not always exhaustive,” so treat each search as a sample.

Finally, ask an AI assistant what it knows about your business and note the sources it cites. BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 (11 February 2026, 1,002 US adults) found that use of AI tools for local recommendations rose from 6% to 45% in a year.

Sort Every Result Into One of Five Kinds

Each kind has its own next step.

Pages You Control

Your website and the profiles you run come first, because you can change them today. Raters do not count them as independent, but strangers still read them. Check that your address, hours, licence details and policies match what other pages say. If a search keeps raising the same question, answer it plainly on your own site.

Listings You Did Not Create

Directories, map pins and scraped copies of old details land here. A vape shop might find a listing with an address it left years ago. Claim the listing where you are eligible. Where you are not, ask the site to correct it and record the request.

Google Business Profile has its own limits. Google’s eligibility guidelines say a business “must make in-person contact with customers during its stated hours.” Online-only businesses and virtual offices are not eligible. Businesses tied to products with a minimum age, “like alcohol, cannabis, or weapons,” cannot be service-area businesses without a storefront.

Reviews

Read reviews for what they describe. The guidelines say a rude clerk or one delayed package should not count as negative reputation information. Repeated, credible reports of fraud need a real fix before any reply.

Reply where the platform allows it, briefly and without customer details. Google Maps’ user-generated content policy lists alcohol, gambling, tobacco, guns, regulated pharmaceuticals and adult services among its restricted categories. Content about them may not include calls to action or offers to sell. The same policy keeps adult-themed and sexually explicit content out of contributions.

Escort agencies meet several of these limits at once, and the ad and payment rules below name escort services directly. An agency auditing its online reputation should also check that no review, reply or testimonial names or describes a client.

Coverage and Discussion

News stories, blog posts and forum threads are the independent sources raters look for. The guidelines note that news articles can mention awards as well as controversies. If a report gets a fact wrong, ask the publisher to correct it and keep a copy of your request. On a forum, read the rules before you reply. Never threaten a reviewer or writer to get a post removed; the review rules below explain why.

Impersonation and Misuse

Fake profiles, copied listings and your photos on someone else’s site belong here. When you search with an image through Google Lens, Google says the results can include “Websites with the image or a similar image.” Report impersonation through the platform’s own reporting route.

Why Paid Fixes Are Limited in Restricted Categories

Google Ads’ Dating and Companionship policy prohibits ads promoting “in-person companionship, dating, or a sexual act in exchange for compensation,” and it names escort services. Its Recreational drugs policy allows ads for topical, hemp-derived CBD with 0.3% THC or less, in limited US locations and with LegitScript certification. Google Ads also bars tobacco ads and ads for products designed to simulate tobacco smoking. Gambling advertisers need Google certification and a valid local licence for each region they target.

Meta’s Advertising Standards state that “promoting vapes is not allowed in any context.” Meta also bars ads promoting the sale or use of weapons or adult sexual services, and it limits CBD ads to the United States.

Stripe’s “Prohibited and Restricted Businesses” list, updated on 22 September 2026, prohibits gambling, cannabis products and adult services, including escorts. Online dating, low-THC CBD, e-cigarettes and legal firearms sit in its restricted group, which faces extra due diligence. PayPal’s US Acceptable Use Policy, updated on 4 November 2026, prohibits transactions involving cigarettes, firearms, ammunition and certain sexually oriented services. Gambling and online dating need PayPal’s approval first.

Anyone reviewing your business, a payment provider included, can run the searches you have just run. Check the current version of each policy before you rely on it.

What the Review Rules Say

In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission’s rule on consumer reviews and testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465, took effect on 21 October 2024. It bans fake reviews and paying for reviews that must express a particular sentiment, positive or negative. Other sections cover insider reviews, company-controlled review websites and fake social media indicators. The rule also bans using “an unfounded or groundless legal threat, a physical threat, intimidation, or a public false accusation” to stop or remove a review. For a false accusation, the ban applies when the person making it knows it is false or is reckless about whether it is true.

The FTC’s questions and answers page, dated November 2024, says the rule “does not prohibit giving incentives for reviews” unless the review must take a particular sentiment. The same page says the rule has no specific ban on review gating, meaning inviting only customers likely to be happy. The page adds that gating may still break the wider FTC Act.

Google Maps goes further. Its policy bars merchants from offering payment, discounts or free goods in exchange for any review. It also bars them from discouraging negative reviews or selectively asking customers for positive ones.

In the UK, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 made fake reviews, and reviews that hide an incentive, a banned practice from 6 April 2025. The Competition and Markets Authority published its “Fake reviews” guidance for businesses on 4 April 2025.

This article is not legal advice. Rules differ by country and can change, so check the current rules where you trade.

What Google Can Remove, and What It Cannot

Google’s “Remove my private info” page states that “Google can only remove things from Google Search results.” The original page stays online until its owner changes it. Three Google routes are worth knowing:

• Results about you lets you ask Google to remove results showing personal details such as a phone number, home address or email address. It suits an owner whose details appear beside the business. Some features are available only in certain markets.
• Refresh outdated content is for a page deleted from a site that still appears in Google Search. It updates Google’s result and does not change the site.
• Report Content for Legal Reasons covers content “that you believe violates the law or your rights.” Google says it will review the material and consider blocking, limiting or removing access.

A genuine negative review fits none of these routes. You can still reply where the platform allows, fix the cause and keep your own pages accurate.

Make the Audit a Habit

Set up a Google Alert for your business name. Google’s help page says you will get emails “whenever we find matching search results,” and you can choose how often, which sources and which region. Keep each audit’s log so you can compare runs. Repeat the searches after any trigger: fewer enquiries, a payment provider review, a hostile post or a new listing you did not create. Between those events, a fixed date each quarter keeps the log current.