Can You Legally Republish Google, G2 and Trustpilot Reviews on Your Website?
Three separate questions get tangled together here — who owns the words, what the platform's terms allow, and what the FTC requires. A practical breakdown of each, and the approaches that stay safe on all three.
Pavel Putilin
Founder
Short answer
Generally yes, with limits: the reviewer owns their words, so quote accurately, attribute the reviewer and the platform, and link back rather than copying wholesale. What creates liability is editing a review so it reads more positively than it was, or presenting a platform review as if collected directly.
This is a practical summary, not legal advice, and platform terms change. Check the current terms for the specific platform before relying on any of this.
You have forty good Google reviews. You want them on your homepage. This seems like it should be simple, and the reason it is not is that three separate questions are being asked at once, and people usually only think about one of them.
- Copyright — who owns the words?
- Platform terms — what does Google, G2, or Trustpilot permit?
- Consumer protection — how must you present them?
You can be fine on one and exposed on another. Worth taking them separately.
Who owns a review
The general position is that the reviewer owns the copyright in what they wrote. It is their original expression, fixed in a tangible medium, and that is enough. Neither the platform nor the business being reviewed acquires ownership by being the subject of it.
What the platform typically has is a licence — usually broad, usually including the right to sublicense — granted by the reviewer when they accepted the terms of service. That licence lets the platform display and distribute the review. It does not automatically extend to you.
The common intuition — "it's public, so I can use it" — does not hold. Public means visible. It does not mean unrestricted. A blog post is public too.
In practice, quoting a short extract with clear attribution is a far weaker target than reproducing a review in full and presenting it as your own testimonial. But the cleanest fix is also the easiest one: ask. Someone who left you a five-star review will almost always agree, and their explicit yes resolves the copyright question entirely.
What the platforms allow
Each platform sets its own terms, and they change, so treat the following as the shape of the problem rather than the current rules.
Google. There are supported routes for surfacing Business Profile reviews, and using them with the required attribution is the intended path. Attribution normally means naming the source and the reviewer, and not presenting the content as if it originated with you. Obtaining review content by scraping, outside the supported routes, is where terms typically get breached.
G2. Operates a licensing model — G2 sells the right to use its badges, quotes, and reports in your marketing. That is a fairly clear signal about how it views unlicensed republishing of full review content.
Trustpilot. Provides official widgets and has explicit rules about how reviews may be presented, including around selective display. Using their widget keeps you inside their terms by construction.
Yelp. Historically among the stricter platforms about display outside its own properties, and prefers you use its supplied tools.
The pattern across all of them: an official widget or API is the intended route, and copying content out is the one that creates exposure. Widgets have a second advantage — they update. A screenshot of a 4.8 rating that is now 4.2 is its own problem.
Or collect testimonials you actually own
One link, your customer records in the browser — consent captured with the submission, no platform terms in the way. Free plan includes 10 videos, 20 text testimonials and a Wall of Love embed.
How you present them
This is the part most guidance skips, and since October 2024 it is the part with the sharpest teeth. The FTC's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (16 CFR Part 465) carries civil penalties, and several of its prohibitions bear directly on republished reviews.
Do not misrepresent the set. Curating is allowed. Claiming or implying that your page shows all your reviews, or a fair sample, while filtering out the negative ones, is not.
Do not change meaning. Trimming for length is normal. Cutting a qualifier so a mixed review reads as glowing is a different act. If you edit materially, get the reviewer to approve the edit.
Disclose material connections. If a review came from an employee, a relative, or someone who received an incentive, that has to be disclosed near the review itself.
Do not fabricate. Composite or illustrative reviews must be unmistakably labelled. A generated review presented as a real customer's is prohibited regardless of how typical it might be.
We cover the Rule in more detail in the FTC rule on consumer reviews and testimonials.
Four approaches, ranked by risk
Collect the testimonial directly — lowest risk
Ask the customer for a testimonial of your own. You hold the consent from the moment it is given, you own the relationship, and no platform's terms apply. It is more work than copying a review and it is the only approach with no residual questions.
Use the platform's official widget — low risk
Embed Trustpilot's or Google's supported display tools. You stay inside the terms by construction, attribution is handled, and the content stays current. The trade-off is that you inherit the platform's styling and control less of the presentation.
Quote with permission and attribution — manageable risk
Ask the reviewer, quote accurately, attribute to the source ("via Google"), and keep a record of the permission. This is how most businesses reasonably operate, and the record is what makes it defensible.
Copy review text wholesale with no permission — highest risk
Reproducing full reviews as if they were testimonials you collected, without attribution or permission. This is the approach that touches all three problems at once, and it is the common one.
The practical answer
For most businesses: use official widgets for third-party reviews, ask permission before quoting anything at length, always attribute to the source, and never imply your curated page is the complete picture.
And where the reviews genuinely matter to your marketing — the ones going on your homepage and in your ads — collect those as your own testimonials instead. Then the words are given to you directly, the consent is on record, and none of the three questions in this article apply.
For the permissions and release-form side of collecting your own, see the video testimonial permission and legal guide.
Pavel Putilin
·FounderFounder of VideoTestimonials. Passionate about helping businesses build trust through authentic customer stories and video social proof.
Frequently asked questions
Can I copy my Google reviews onto my own website+
Displaying your own Google reviews is common and widely done, but three separate constraints apply at once. The reviewer generally owns the words they wrote, Google's terms govern how you may obtain and display the content, and the FTC governs how you present it. The lowest-risk approach is to display reviews through an official widget or API with clear attribution to the source and the reviewer, rather than copying text into your page as though it were a testimonial you collected.
Who owns a review — me, the reviewer, or the platform+
As a general matter the person who wrote the review owns the copyright in their words, because it is their original expression. The platform normally holds a licence to display and sublicense that content under its terms, not ownership of it. That is why permission questions do not disappear just because a review is publicly visible — public does not mean unrestricted.
Do I need permission to quote a customer review on my site+
Quoting a short extract with attribution is a much weaker position to attack than reproducing a review wholesale, but the safest route is simply to ask. A customer who left you a five-star review will almost always say yes, and their explicit permission removes both the copyright question and any ambiguity about presenting it as a testimonial.
Is it against Google's terms to display Google reviews on my website+
Google provides supported ways to surface Business Profile reviews, and using those routes with the required attribution is the intended path. Scraping review content outside those routes is where terms are typically breached. Because platform terms change, check the current developer and business terms for the specific product you are using rather than relying on a summary.
Can I show only my positive reviews+
You can curate which testimonials you publish. What you cannot do is imply the page shows all reviews or a representative sample while filtering out negative ones — that misrepresentation is specifically targeted by the FTC Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials. The simplest safe position is to make no claim about completeness.
What is the safest way to reuse reviews from other platforms+
Ask the reviewer for permission to republish, attribute the review to its original source, do not edit it in ways that change meaning, and disclose any incentive that was involved. If you would rather not manage that, collect testimonials directly instead — then you hold the consent from the start and the platform's terms never enter into it.
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