What reviews on your own site change, and what they don't

A reader comparing three contractors is looking for evidence, and a quoted review with a name, a job and a date is evidence in a way an adjective is not. Put them where the decision happens: beside the service, above the form, not in a carousel on the homepage.

What Google says about the ranking side, precisely. Its local ranking documentation states that review count and score are factored into local search ranking. That is about the profile. Nothing in it says reviews pasted onto your own site rank it.

Do not add Review or AggregateRating markup to your own site. Google prohibits the self-serving kind, and its structured data general guidelines also require markup to describe content actually visible on the page. The sanctioned path is to link the real profile so the ratings are read from the source that owns them — which is what this site does: we carry no review markup at all, deliberately, and never will.

And the collection side is constrained. Google's prohibited and restricted content policy bars fake and incentivized reviews. Buying them is not a shortcut with a risk attached; it is a violation aimed at the asset you are trying to build.

So the honest split: reviews on your site are sales copy with evidence in it. Reviews on your profile are a ranking input. Both are worth having and they are not the same instrument.