To combat fake reviews that pollute Maps, Google now displays a warning on the pages of the establishments concerned. The company also puts in place several sanctions against this practice.
On Google Maps, reviews often allow users to find out about different places and points of interest before going there. Is the food at this restaurant good? Are the rooms at this hotel clean and comfortable? Is this museum interesting? Are the waiters at this bar friendly? So many questions that comments from other customers and users can answer. In 2023, there were around 20 million contributions per day on Maps and Search, including updates on opening hours, ratings, photos, reviews, videos, etc. The problem is that these comments and reviews are far from reliable, despite all the efforts of the American firm.
And with generative AIs like ChatGPT now available to the general public, things aren’t going to get any better! Since these tools make it easy to generate text on demand in natural language, they’re very popular for writing fake reviews on a mass scale: and not just positive ones, they can also be used to criticize competing establishments. Many sites have even turned this trend into a real business by offering to publish custom-written reviews for a fee. Also, to try to stem this phenomenon, Google now displays a warning when a company has been the subject of a fake review removal.
Fake Google reviews: warnings on the pages of the establishments concerned
As reported by our colleagues from Search Engine RoundtableGoogle has started leaving warning messages on the Google Maps pages of establishments that have had certain reviews deemed to be false removed: “Alleged fake reviews have recently been removed from this location“.
This is one of the new measures that Google can impose. The firm also reserves the right to block new reviews and unpublish existing ones while it conducts its investigation. Professionals who believe they have been wrongly sanctioned obviously have the possibility of appealing to Google. The firm will then be able to reverse its decision if necessary.
This update is done on the server side and should be deployed gradually for all Google Maps users. Note that in 2023, the algorithm of the Mountain View firm had made it possible to remove more than 170 million fake reviews. More than 12 million fake business profiles had also been deleted or blocked. This new measure is therefore more than welcome!