As of November 2025, Google has modified its policy regarding how you appear publicly on Google Maps and Search. The change allows you to create a custom screen name and picture, and changes/edits made to your existing account will retroactively update all previous posts/reviews you made.
There is no option to anonymise individual posts selectively, it’s all or nothing. Affected ‘Googlesphere’ products include Google Maps reviews, Google Maps photos and videos, Google Maps Q&As, Google Maps photo updates, TV or media reviews on Google Search.
Reviews of all kinds are more important than ever in 2025 due to generative AI search results on Google and people using ChatGPT and other GenAI tools for search. So, business owners and SEO practitioners are justified in being concerned about a review policy change that might lead to more malicious review campaigns or even lone one-star reviews by a disgruntled third-party.
Will anonymous Google reviews affect UK law firms?
First, we should accept that anonymous Google reviews have always been possible to create by simply setting up another Google account under an alias.
Review spam and fake reviews have also always been a feature. The biggest fundamental change here for the UK legal industry is it just got harder to request a review removal because “…the reviewer was never our client”. To be fair, though, that tactic was already seriously flawed and inconsistently successful. A reviewer never had to be your client in the first place; they simply had to have interacted with you over the phone or in person.
An honest appraisal of the new policy includes a range of potential positive and negative outcomes. From our perspective here at Conscious, we believe the overall effects will be largely positive in a net gain of high-value reviews vs negative.
The good side of anonymous reviews for UK law firms
The legal industry is one where clients value their privacy above all else. Law firms and legal practitioners find it challenging to curate positive reviews, even from happy clients, due to the sensitive nature of the topics involved. Unhappy clients were never averse to posting their complaints; it was the positives that were slipping between the cracks from the start.
This change enables anonymity, which will likely attract more potential positive reviewers. It also helps to keep reviews and responses firmly under regulatory confidentiality rules and guidelines, including those of the SRA. A good review curation strategy would be to update any review requests from happy clients to include the new anonymity feature. Although, the problem with this is that it will change ALL their previous reviews to anonymous, even the one for the local pizza restaurant where they do not mind being identified!
The bad side of anonymous reviews for UK law firms
It will become more difficult to verify the authenticity of a Google review or to address specific incidents as the poster would leave relevant details vague. It will also be easier to post a fake review, however at scale Google will still be monitoring digital footprints using automated systems and machine learning as part of ongoing efforts to combat review spam.
Identifying the source of defamatory reviews, by applying for a Norwich Pharmacal order, will still have to face the precedent of Davidoff & Others v Google LLC, whereby the use of Google Gmail accounts to engage in defamatory review posting on Trustpilot was not deemed sufficient to hold Google accountable.
The ugly side of anonymous reviews for UK law firms
There is greater potential for organised review bombing campaigns, even using AI to set up and run at scale. Imagine dingy offices filled with hackers and spammers replaced with server run bots performing black hat SEO relentlessly and at little cost. There is an additional threat of negative review blackmail being used to extort a business for money.
How likely is this for law firms? Not very. I cannot think of a time where we have seen this happen to a UK law firm.
Additionally, anonymous reviews hold less weight with consumers who value authenticity to the point that today many head straight to a Reddit forum or Youtube or Tik Toc video for what they rightly or wrongly believe will be an “authentic real person” review. Should the general public perceive a decline in Google reviews quality or tone that leads to distrust or aversion, then they will simply decamp to another review platform entirely, leaving the value of authentic positive reviews tarnished by bad apples.
What does the future hold for anonymous Google reviews?
The very best advice we can give on this policy update is to wait and see while actively focusing on the positives and ignoring the negatives until they manifest in the real world.
All of the bad aspects of receiving a bad review are still there but have been joined by a chance to entice exponentially more authentic positive reviews. Should the Google ecosystem ever be compromised by a notable lack of user trust in their reviews as a direct result of this change they will simply roll it back.
They have performed many rollbacks in the past and we can assume will do so as required in the future. Google wants user eyes on its products all the time and would resent any defections to other review platforms.
UK law firm best practice for Google reviews in 2026
- Curate positive reviews from successful cases. Highlight the anonymity feature to clients. Remember best practice: never incentivise the client to review but you can incentivise staff to ask for a review.
- Take screenshots of your Google reviews on at least a monthly basis. Should you ever lose a review due to a policy update you have a record with which to petition Google for redress. This will also alert you to any defamatory or spammy reviews in a timely manner. Use this time to reply to all comments. Google loves that!
- Ensure you have someone who is fluent in Google policy and the legal frameworks for forcing removal of authentically defamatory and/or spammy reviews.
If you’d like to discuss the importance of this change to Google’s review policy for your law firm, please get in contact with one of the team at Conscious on sales@conscious.co.uk or call us at 0117 325 0200.