Review gating is asking customers how satisfied they are first, then only inviting the happy ones to leave a public review. It is against Google's policies.
Plenty of contractors do it without knowing it has a name or that it is prohibited, usually because a review tool shipped with the feature turned on.
The typical setup looks harmless: a message asking for a rating, where four and five stars route to Google and one to three route to a private feedback form. That filtering is the violation, and it can cost the reviews collected that way, not just the future ones.
The legitimate version is to ask everybody the same way and handle unhappy customers by fixing the problem, not by diverting the request. A visible negative review answered well is more persuasive to a homeowner than an unbroken wall of five stars, which increasingly reads as bought.
There is a compliant middle ground worth knowing: you can absolutely time the request, ask in person, and make it easy. What you cannot do is decide who gets asked based on what they are likely to say.
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