How we check reviews

• Every review written on LocallyIrish.ie is read by a person before it is published.
• We use technical checks to catch fake and bulk reviews.
• We do not verify that every reviewer was a customer of the business, for example by asking for a receipt.
• Businesses cannot pay to remove, hide or change reviews, and owners cannot edit or delete them.

1. Name and email. Reviewers give a name and an email address. The email is never shown publicly.
2. One review per business from the same internet connection. A second review of the same business from the same connection is not published.
3. Limits on volume. We limit how many reviews one connection can send in an hour and in a day, so nobody can flood the site.
4. VPN and data-centre flags. Reviews sent through a VPN, proxy or data centre are flagged for a closer look, and count for less in a business's Trust Score.
5. A person reads it. We reject reviews that look fake, are abusive, contain personal information, are about a different business, or are not about a real experience.
6. Repeat abuse. We can block a connection that keeps sending fake reviews.

Please only review a business you have actually used. You must not:

• review your own business, one you work for or are connected to, or a competitor;
• write a review for someone else, or buy, sell or swap reviews;
• accept payment, a discount or a gift for a review without saying so in the review.

Businesses may ask their real customers for reviews, including through LocallyIrish, but must not offer anything in return for a positive one.

A business's position on category and “Best of” pages uses its reviews on LocallyIrish.ie and its Google rating counted together, weighted by how many ratings there are, so a few perfect scores cannot outrank hundreds of good ones. The full method is in our Editorial Policy.

Some listings show a Google rating and Google reviews. These come from Google, are labelled as such, and are shown as Google provides them: we do not check them ourselves and we do not choose which Google reviews appear. If a listing's Google reviews appear to have been targeted by abuse, we may hide them on that listing entirely. To report a Google review, use “Report review” on Google Maps.

Owners are told about new reviews and can post one public reply under each. They cannot edit, hide or remove a review. If an owner believes a review breaks these rules, they can report it like anyone else.

If you think a review is fake, abusive, or about the wrong business, email hello@locallyirish.ie with a link to the listing and the reviewer's name, and tell us why. A person will look at it and tell you what we decided. If we remove a review, we tell the reviewer why, and they can ask us to look again. See section 11 of our Terms of Use.