Facebook reviews and recommendations for your business

Facebook reviews and recommendations for a business are public opinions that real people attach to your Page, and you manage them with four tools: asking every customer the same way, replying in public, reporting the ones that break a written rule, and deciding whether the Page should accept them at all. You cannot delete a recommendation because you dislike it. You can report one that breaks a rule, and you can answer the rest so that the next visitor sees how you handle criticism.

Two things make Facebook different from a rating site. The opinion usually comes from a named profile with its own friends and history, and it sits on a Page that is also your social presence. A recommendation is therefore read as a neighbor's word, not as an anonymous score, and a hostile one is often tied to a personal dispute, not to a product.

This guide is built around the decisions a Page owner actually faces: whether to keep recommendations on, how to ask without breaking rules, what a good public reply does, which recommendations can be reported and what to do when a wave of fake ones arrives. One limit first: Meta's Help Center pages could not be read for this guide, so we make no claim about Meta's current rule text, menu labels, review times or what its settings do. Where that matters, the text says to check Meta's own page.

The short version

Meta's Help Center is the authority on whether your Page can switch Recommendations off and on how to report one. We could not read it for this guide, so open it before you act.
Ask all customers in the same neutral way, offer nothing in return, and never filter who is asked. In the United States the FTC rule on reviews bars buying fake ones and using unfounded legal threats to remove honest ones.
Report only a recommendation you can match to a written rule, with evidence. Reply publicly to everything else, briefly, without personal details.
Switching recommendations off removes the problem and the proof together. Decide it as a business choice, not in the heat of one bad week.

What a Facebook recommendation is and what we could not read for this guide

A Facebook recommendation is an opinion about a business Page left by a Facebook user, shown on the Page and attached to that user's profile. That much is stable. The details around it are not.

Meta's Help Center and Transparency Center pages on Recommendations, Page settings and reporting were blocked to automated readers, so we could not read them for this guide. Search the Help Center for the Page setting for Recommendations and for the page on reporting a Recommendation or review, and treat the steps there as the authority and ours as the reasoning around them.

Why the format changes the work

Because the author is usually a real profile, three things follow. A reply from your Page can be seen by the author's friends, so tone travels further than on an anonymous platform. The author can often be identified by you as a customer, which tempts businesses to argue facts in public and expose the customer, a mistake covered below. And a dispute can move into the rest of the author's Facebook life: messages, comments on your posts, shared screenshots in local groups.

Keep, restrict or switch off: the decision a Page owner has to make

The first decision is not how to reply to a bad recommendation. It is whether your Page should show recommendations at all. Check in Meta's Help Center whether your Page offers a setting to turn the feature on or off, because we could not read it. What the choice means for your visitors is a business question.

Choice	What you gain	What you lose	Sensible when
Keep on, with a routine	Visible proof from real customers; a place to show how you respond	Exposure to unfair or hostile opinions you can only report or answer	You serve a local or consumer audience and can reply within a few days
Keep on, but reduce exposure	Proof stays; you spend effort on moderation and on asking more customers	Needs weekly attention; one attack still shows	Recommendations are mostly positive and attacks are rare
Switch off	No new public opinions arriving on the Page	A missing trust signal; visitors may read the absence as a sign	You are not consumer facing, or you are under a sustained attack and need time
Switch off, then back on later	A pause while you fix the cause and rebuild proof elsewhere	Uncertainty about what happens to existing ones: check the Meta page first	A fixed event, such as a coordinated wave, has ended

The cases where switching off is the wrong answer

Where a setting exists, switching off is tempting after a bad week. It rarely helps when the problem is a few critical but genuine opinions, because those people will say the same thing in posts, comments and local groups, where you have no reporting route and no reply box tied to the opinion. It also leaves the other review surfaces, such as your search profile, as the only place customers can speak, and that concentrates any complaint there.

It makes sense in three situations: the Page is a brand shell with no customers to review, a coordinated attack is under way and you need the surface closed while you report it, or you cannot staff replies at all and unanswered criticism would do more harm than a closed door. In all three, write down the date you will reconsider.

Asking for recommendations the allowed way

Ask every real customer, in the same neutral words, after the experience is finished, with no reward and no selection by expected happiness. That is the core, and it is the same rule almost every platform and regulator converges on.

We could not read Meta's current rules on soliciting recommendations, so we rely on the primary source we could read, the FTC's staff questions and answers on its Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule, and on stable principles. The FTC page states the rule went into effect on October 21, 2024, and that it does not prohibit giving incentives for reviews as long as there is no requirement that they be positive. It also says a business cannot pay for five-star reviews on third-party platforms, even with a disclosure, and that this would violate Section 465.4. A platform can be stricter than the law, which is why "legal" and "allowed on Facebook" are different questions. Check Meta's Help Center on recommendations before you offer anything of value, because a reward the FTC tolerates may still break a platform rule.

How to ask on Facebook specifically:

Use the channel where the customer already talks to you, such as a message thread, a receipt line or a post on the Page, and use identical wording everywhere.
Send the request after the service is complete, so the answer reflects the whole experience.
Do not pre-screen. A "how did we do?" question that sends happy customers to Facebook and unhappy ones to a private form is selective asking, and several platforms prohibit it.
Never ask staff, family or suppliers to recommend you without a disclosed connection. The FTC page treats insider reviews as a separate concern.

The full method for generating reviews across platforms is a topic of its own, so we keep this section to what is specific to Facebook: the asker is a person with a profile, and a pushy request is remembered by that person's friends.

Replying publicly on Facebook without making it worse

A public reply is read by the next customer, and the author's friends, far more than by the author. Write for that audience: short, specific, calm, free of customer details. The reply takes ten minutes. The harm from a bad one lasts as long as the Page.

Three rules are specific to a profile-based platform. Do not confirm that the person is a customer unless the opinion itself says so, because confirming it discloses a relationship the person has chosen to share only in part. Do not mention dates, amounts, staff names or what was ordered. Do not tag the author. An offer to talk should name a team or a general channel and nothing private.

When not to reply

Do not reply to a recommendation that is plainly abusive, that you are about to report, or that you cannot answer without exposing the person. Report it, wait for the outcome and then decide. A reply written in anger tends to become the screenshot that circulates, and it can be quoted back to you even if the original opinion is later removed.

Which recommendations can be reported, and which cannot

A recommendation can be reported when it breaks a written rule and you can show it. It cannot be removed because it is negative, harsh, unfair or inconvenient. We could not read Meta's reporting page for this guide, so the test below uses categories that platforms commonly police, and you must match your case to Meta's own wording before you submit.

What the recommendation does	Report?	Evidence to prepare	Likely outcome
Abuse, threats or slurs directed at staff	Yes	The text, and the date you saw it	Strong case if the language is clear
Personal details of an employee or customer	Yes	Which detail, and that it was not already public	Reasonable case
The author never dealt with you	Yes, if provable	Records showing no order, booking or contact	Hard to prove from your side; keep the claim modest
A competitor or a former employee posing as a customer	Yes, if provable	A link to the author's own post or statement	Depends on proof, not suspicion
Part of a burst from unconnected accounts	Yes, as a group	A dated list showing timing and similar wording	Stronger as a pattern than as single reports
Honest but harsh criticism	No	None to prepare; reply instead	Likely refused, and you spent credibility
An opinion you say is false but cannot prove false	Rarely	Documents that contradict a specific fact	Platforms rarely judge disputed facts

Before you report a recommendation

Save the evidenceTake a dated screenshot of the recommendation, the author's visible profile name and the Page. Keep your own records of any order or contact. Do this first: content can vanish once an author senses a dispute.
Name the ruleOpen the Meta reporting page and choose the reason that fits what the text does, not how it feels. If no reason fits, stop and reply instead.
Report once, with factsUse the reason and any free-text field to state what the text does and what you can show. Do not repeat the report across many reasons or accounts.
Hold your replyWait for the outcome before you answer in public, unless the text invites visitors to take a risky action.
Log the resultRecord the date, the reason chosen and the answer received, so a later pattern can be shown to Meta or to counsel.

The reporting page may offer a way to ask again or appeal. We could not read it, so check before you plan around one. Where the reply to a report is a refusal, accept the refusal for that item and move to a public reply. Repeated reports of the same item rarely change the answer and can make the file look like a campaign.

When the recommendations are fake, coordinated or tied to an extortion attempt

A sudden group of negative recommendations from accounts with no history of dealing with you is a different problem from one unhappy customer. The response is evidence first, report as a pattern, and keep your own conduct above reproach.

Signs that justify the pattern route: several opinions in a short window, similar wording, authors with little other activity, details that do not match your service, or a message that links the burst to a demand. If anyone asks for money to stop or remove negative recommendations, do not pay, do not argue, keep every message and speak to counsel or the police where you live. Paying rarely ends it and creates a record that you did.

Never answer a fake wave with a fake wave. Asking friends, staff or an agency to post positive recommendations that do not reflect a real experience is the fastest way to turn a one-sided story into a two-sided one, and in the United States it falls under the FTC rule described below. The honest counterweight is slow and legitimate: ask genuine customers, all of them, in the ordinary way.

An invented scenario with stated assumptions

A small invented services Page has 40 recommendations, of which 34 are positive. Over two days, 15 new negative ones arrive from unrelated accounts with near-identical wording. Assume none are removed and no new genuine ones arrive in the period.

The share of positive recommendations is 34 of 40, or 85 percent, before the burst. After it, the total is 55 and the share is 34 of 55, or about 62 percent. The chart uses those figures, which are computed from the stated assumptions and not taken from any platform.

Share of positive recommendations on an invented PagePercent positive. Computed from 34 positive of 40, then 34 positive of 55. Facebook may not display this figure.

Before the burst85%

After 15 negatives62%

Invented scenario with generic parties. Widths are the value divided by 85, rounded.

What the numbers teach: a burst of 15 against a base of 40 moves the picture a great deal, while the same burst against a base of 400 would be much less visible. The best defense against a hostile wave is a large base of genuine opinions built steadily, which is the quiet work of the asking routine, not a reaction.

What the FTC rule adds for US businesses

The FTC's staff questions and answers say the Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule went into effect on October 21, 2024. Read on its page, the rule bans fake or false reviews, including those written by a business, and reviews from people who did not have the experience described. It addresses review suppression and says organizing reviews is not suppression. It also says businesses may respond publicly to reviews, that the rule prohibits a false accusation about a reviewer if you know it is false, and that unfounded legal threats used to stop or remove a review are prohibited, while a threat of legal action with a legitimate basis is not. The page states that courts can impose civil penalties for knowing violations and that individuals cannot sue under the rule.

The FTC Q&A is guidance, and the FTC's announcement of the final rule describes the same provisions. Neither covers businesses outside the United States, where other consumer laws apply, and neither replaces your own counsel. The practical reading for a Facebook Page: do not write, buy or invite false recommendations, do not make accusations you know are false or threats you cannot back, and keep a record of your ordinary asking process so you can show what you did.

A ninety-day routine for a Page that wants a healthier record

Most Pages need a routine more than a campaign. The timeline below is experience, written as usual ranges, and depends on how many customers you serve.

Period	What to do	What usually shows
Days 1 to 7	Read Meta's help pages on the setting and on reporting, decide keep or switch off, screenshot the current state, list who can reply	A clear owner and a baseline
Days 8 to 30	Reply to every existing recommendation worth answering, report any that break a written rule, start the neutral ask for all customers	The first new genuine recommendations, usually a handful
Days 31 to 60	Keep the ask identical, answer within a few days, record patterns, fix operational causes of repeated complaints	Reply times settle and repeated themes become visible
Days 61 to 90	Review the log, compare the mix of opinions with day one, adjust who asks and when	A more representative picture, if volume allows

What to do this week

Find Meta's two help pages on the Page setting and on reporting, read them in full, and decide whether recommendations stay on. Then write one neutral request, send it to every customer from today, and keep a log of every recommendation you report, with its reason and result.

If this is happening to you now

If a wave of recommendations looks fake, or someone is demanding payment to stop one, save the evidence and stop replying in public. Reputation Partners can review the Page, the pattern and the options in a private audit, and tell you honestly which routes will fail. Start with the private audit.

Questions people ask

Can I delete a Facebook recommendation myself?

Not one written by someone else. Meta offers a reporting route, which we could not read for this guide, and a report succeeds only if the content breaks a written rule. What you control is the setting that lets the Page accept recommendations, your own replies and the asking routine that adds genuine ones.

Will turning recommendations off remove the ones I already have?

We could not read Meta's page on that setting, so we cannot say. Search Meta's Help Center for the Page setting for Recommendations, check what it says about existing ones before you change anything, and take screenshots first.

Is it legal to ask only happy customers to recommend me?

The FTC staff Q&A says the rule has no specific prohibition on asking only happy customers but that the practice could still violate the FTC Act. Platforms are often stricter. Ask everyone in the same words and you avoid the question.

Can I offer a discount for a recommendation?

The FTC page says the rule does not prohibit incentives for reviews as long as the reviews are not required to be positive. Meta's own rules could not be read for this guide, and platforms are often stricter than the law. Check the Meta page before offering anything.

What if a recommendation names an employee?

Report it if it contains abuse or private information and you can match it to a written rule. Do not name or discuss the employee in your reply. Support the employee privately, and keep your evidence in case the pattern continues.

Should I answer a fake recommendation?

Report it first, and keep the reply, if any, short and factual. State that you cannot find a record of the described experience and invite contact through a general channel. Do not accuse the author of lying in public; readers judge tone as much as claims.