How to Get More Reviews on Rover (and Build Reviews Off Rover)

To get more reviews on Rover, complete bookings through the platform consistently, follow up with a friendly message after each stay reminding the owner that a review helps other pet parents find you, and keep your profile — photos, response time, availability — current enough that Rover's own ranking favors you. Reviews can only come from stays booked through Rover itself, so the platform rewards steady, repeat bookings more than any single request tactic. Most sitters and walkers who build a living on Rover eventually hit the same ceiling: a strong five-star history on the app, and almost nothing to show for it anywhere else. That's a real limitation, because Rover reviews don't appear on Google Maps, don't help a local search for "dog sitter near me," and disappear entirely if you ever stop using the app. Building a parallel reputation with Google reviews beyond Rover is what protects your business if your relationship with any one platform changes. How reviews actually work on Rover Rover reviews can only be left by owners who booked and paid through the platform , which is different from Google or Yelp, where anyone who's ever interacted with your business — rightly or wrongly — can leave one. That has an upside: you won't get a review from someone who never actually booked with you. It also means your review count is capped by your booking volume on the app specifically, not by your total client base, so a sitter who's built a loyal off-platform clientele over the years can still look thin on Rover. Rover's internal search and ranking reward sitters who respond quickly to inquiries, keep their calendar accurate, and complete bookings without cancellations, with review count and recency factoring in alongside those signals . In practice, the sitters who show up near the top of a search tend to be the ones who are active and responsive on the app day to day, not just the ones with the highest star rating sitting on an old review from a year ago. Asking for a Rover review without pushing clients off-platform The safest and most effective approach is a short, warm message sent through Rover's own messaging after a stay wraps up — something like letting the owner know you enjoyed looking after their dog and that a review helps other pet parents find a sitter they can trust. Keep it genuine and keep it inside the app; don't ask the owner to leave the review somewhere else instead, and don't offer any discount on a future booking in exchange for one, which runs against both Rover's policies and the FTC's rule on fake and incentivized reviews, 16 CFR Part 465 . A few things that consistently help: Send the request the same day the stay ends, while the experience — and any photos you shared during the stay — are still fresh in the owner's mind. Ask every client, not just the ones who seemed thrilled. Filtering requests based on how the stay went is review gating, and it also means you miss out on the honest, specific reviews that actually build trust with the next owner comparing sitters. Keep your profile active between bookings — updated availability, recent photos, a prompt response to new inquiries — since Rover's visibility rewards activity, not just your star rating. Be careful with anything that looks like steering a client off Rover to avoid the platform's service fee on a repeat booking. Rover's terms restrict taking bookings off-platform with clients you met through the app , and violating that risks your account standing, not just a warning. If a longtime client independently decides to book you directly without any encouragement from you, that's a different situation — but don't build a request or referral process designed to move Rover clients off the app. Building a Google review history in parallel Because Rover reviews stay locked inside Rover, the most durable move for a sitter or walker is to also build a Google Business Profile, even as a service-area business with no storefront, and request a review there for any client relationship that exists outside an app booking — a neighbor, a referral, a client you picked up before you joined Rover. Google reviews show up in local search results for anyone nearby searching "dog walker near me" or "pet sitter near me," which Rover reviews never will. The request mechanics are the same ones that work for any local service business: a short text or email with a direct link to your Google review page, sent soon after a visit while it's still fresh, asked the same way for every client regardless of how the visit went. Our broader guide on how to get more Google reviews covers the full mechanics, and our review request text message templates give you wording to adapt. Yelp is the one exception worth remembering — its terms prohibit asking for reviews there in any form, so treat any Yelp presence as something to monitor and respond to, not solicit. Can I ask a Rover client to also leave me a Google review? You can ask, but be transparent about why — for example, letting a client know you're building a profile outside Rover too, without implying the Rover review doesn't count or encouraging them to skip leaving one on the app. Keep the Google ask focused on clients where it makes sense, such as a longer-term relationship, rather than treating it as a replacement for the Rover review you'd otherwise get. Why does my sitter profile show fewer reviews than my total number of clients? Because Rover only counts reviews from stays booked and paid through the platform, any clients you picked up independently, through referrals, or before you joined Rover won't show up in that count no matter how many times they've booked with you. That gap is exactly why a parallel Google profile matters — it captures the relationships Rover's review system structurally can't. Does responding to a Rover review change anything? Yes — a brief, appreciative reply to a positive review, and a calm, factual one to a critical review, both signal to the next owner browsing your profile that you're engaged and professional. Avoid disputing details publicly even if you disagree with a review; a short reply inviting the owner to message you directly reads better than a defensive rebuttal in the thread. For more on tone, see how to respond to negative reviews. For the bigger picture of managing reviews across grooming, daycare, boarding and sitting, see our guide to pet business reputation management. Every review from Google, Yelp, Rover and Nextdoor in one inbox → Try Tailwind free. Tailwind runs $5 a month per tool, or $50 a month for the Full plan covering every tool, with the first month free and no card required to start.