Google rolled out a new algorithm last year to fight fake reviews in Google Search and Maps better.
The new algorithm intercepted 45 per cent more fake reviews last year than in 2022. A total of 170 million reviews that violated terms and conditions were removed in the previous year.
In addition, 12 million fake business profiles were removed or blocked last year, and 14 million videos that violated the rules were removed. Furthermore, 2 million attempts were blocked from individuals claiming business profiles that did not belong to them. The latter were 1 million more cases than in 2022.
The new machine learning-based algorithm should detect and remove fake reviews faster. To do so, the algorithm looks at longer-term daily signals, for example, whether the same review is often posted to multiple companies or if a company suddenly gets reviews between one and five stars.
Example
The algorithm needs to pick up anomalies individually or as broader attack patterns. In one case, scammers promised a lot of money for writing fake reviews or clicking on ads on the Internet.
The algorithm could discover these campaigns by continuously analysing patterns, such as whether certain accounts had posted reviews before. The patterns were then used to adjust the algorithm and make it detect and remove the fake reviews in question better.
In total, as many as 5 million fake reviews were removed this way in just a few weeks.
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