Directory For USA

Review Guidelines

How to write a helpful review, what isn't allowed, how reporting and automatic hiding work, and how business owners can reply to reviews.

Reviews help people choose a business with confidence, and help businesses improve. These guidelines keep reviews honest and useful. Reviews are published right away, so please read them before you post.

What makes a good review

Your own experience. Write about a business you have actually used, visited or dealt with yourself.
Specific and fair. Say what happened, what went well and what didn't. Details such as the service you got, how long it took and how you were treated are the most helpful.
Honest. Give the rating that matches your experience, good or bad.
Respectful. You can be critical without being abusive.

What isn't allowed

Spam and promotion. Advertising, repeated or copied text, and reviews unrelated to the business.
Links. Reviews with web links are refused automatically.
Offensive content. Hate speech, threats, harassment, profanity aimed at people, sexual content, or discrimination of any kind.
Personal information. Phone numbers, home addresses or other private details about anyone, including staff.
Conflicts of interest. Reviewing your own business, a business you work for, a relative's or friend's business, or a competitor.
Fake or paid reviews. Reviews written for money, discounts, gifts or other rewards, reviews about experiences you didn't have, and posting under several accounts.
Illegal content. Anything that breaks the law or infringes someone else's rights.

Reviews that contain links or look like spam are refused automatically when you post them, and you'll see the reason.

How reporting works

Anyone signed in can report a review by selecting "Report" under it and choosing a reason, such as spam, offensive, fake or conflict of interest. You can report each review once, and you can't report your own.
When enough people report the same review, it is hidden automatically. It's removed from the listing and from the business's rating, and the author is told by email.
The business owner's report counts more than a visitor's, because owners are often the first to notice a fake review. But an owner can't hide a review alone: at least one other person has to report it too.

Please report only reviews that break these guidelines. A review you simply disagree with isn't a reason to report it, and misusing reports breaks our Terms of Use.

Owner replies

Business owners can reply publicly to any review on their listing. A good reply thanks the customer, addresses the issue and, where it helps, invites them to get in touch. Replies follow the same rules as reviews: no abuse, no personal information about the reviewer, no links or advertising.

Restoring a hidden review or appealing

If you believe your review was hidden by mistake, or that a review breaking these guidelines is still showing, contact us with a link to the listing and a short explanation. We'll review it. A restored review starts with a clean slate, and it takes new reports from other people to hide it again.

We may also hide or remove reviews ourselves when they break these guidelines or our Terms of Use.

What makes a good review

Your own experience. Write about a business you have actually used, visited or dealt with yourself.

Specific and fair. Say what happened, what went well and what didn't. Details such as the service you got, how long it took and how you were treated are the most helpful.

Honest. Give the rating that matches your experience, good or bad.

Respectful. You can be critical without being abusive.

What isn't allowed

Spam and promotion. Advertising, repeated or copied text, and reviews unrelated to the business.

Links. Reviews with web links are refused automatically.

Offensive content. Hate speech, threats, harassment, profanity aimed at people, sexual content, or discrimination of any kind.

Personal information. Phone numbers, home addresses or other private details about anyone, including staff.

Conflicts of interest. Reviewing your own business, a business you work for, a relative's or friend's business, or a competitor.

Fake or paid reviews. Reviews written for money, discounts, gifts or other rewards, reviews about experiences you didn't have, and posting under several accounts.

Illegal content. Anything that breaks the law or infringes someone else's rights.

Reviews that contain links or look like spam are refused automatically when you post them, and you'll see the reason.

How reporting works

Anyone signed in can report a review by selecting "Report" under it and choosing a reason, such as spam, offensive, fake or conflict of interest. You can report each review once, and you can't report your own.

When enough people report the same review, it is hidden automatically. It's removed from the listing and from the business's rating, and the author is told by email.

The business owner's report counts more than a visitor's, because owners are often the first to notice a fake review. But an owner can't hide a review alone: at least one other person has to report it too.

Please report only reviews that break these guidelines. A review you simply disagree with isn't a reason to report it, and misusing reports breaks our Terms of Use.

Restoring a hidden review or appealing

We may also hide or remove reviews ourselves when they break these guidelines or our Terms of Use.