Google has a new review algorithm that the search company says is better and faster at removing fake reviews from local listings on Google Search and Google Maps. “In 2023, this new algorithm helped us remove 45% more fake reviews than the previous year,” Google said. announced.
Google receives many contributions to its Google Maps and local listings, including reviews, photos, listing updates, and more. In fact, Google said it receives “about 20 million contributions a day to Maps and Search.”
New review spam algorithm
Google said it launched a new algorithm last year to better detect and remove fake reviews. Google explained that this is a “machine learning algorithm that detects questionable review parents even faster.” It analyzes “long-term signals every day,” for example, “if a reviewer leaves the same review on multiple companies, or if a company receives a sudden spike in 1- or 5-star reviews.”
The algorithm works to catch both “spot cases and broader attack patterns,” Google wrote. For example, a network of scammers falsely claimed that for a low price they would hook people up to high-paying online jobs, such as writing fake reviews or clicking on ads over the Internet.
Google said its algorithm was able to “quickly identify this increase in suspicious reviews thanks to its ability to continuously analyze patterns, such as whether an account has previously posted reviews.” Human researchers then used it to analyze reports from merchants who recently saw an increase in fake 5-star reviews. Google was then unable to use these patterns to refine the algorithm to remove more of these fake reviews.
This led Google to remove 5 million fake review attempts related to this scam in just a few weeks.
Review anti-spam metrics
Google, like every year, released some metrics about how it fought against fake reviews and contributions to local results in Google Search and Maps. Here are some of those metrics:
Google blocked or removed more than 170 million policy-violating reviews in 2023 (up 45% from 2022) More than 12 million fake business profiles were removed or blocked 14 million policy-violating videos by 2023 (7 million more than last year) Over 2 million blocked attempts to claim business profiles that did not belong to them (1 million more than last year)
Last year, Google shared the number of photos that violated the policies, but this year it omitted them. Google told me the number was higher, Google just wanted to share the piece of video they wanted to highlight this year. Additionally, Google changed the way it looks at fake business profiles from creating fake profiles to claiming fake profiles.
Why we care Spam and false information in search is a problem we all see and have to deal with as marketers. None of us like to receive spam and none of us like to have fake reviews left on our businesses or our clients’ business listings. Google is trying to reduce spamming efforts, but as you can imagine, it’s a game of cat and mouse.
As Google introduces more ways and techniques to prevent and/or reduce spam, spammers find other ways to circumvent these efforts. You can see Google’s efforts last year, here.
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