Google is introducing a brand updated review system that Google claims will be more effective and speedier in eliminating fraudulent reviews from local search results in Google Search and Google Maps. “In 2023, this new algorithm helped us take down 45% more fake reviews than the year before,” Google declared.
Google gets a large amount of inputs to Google Maps and local listings including photographs, reviews, changes on listings, and many additional. Actually, Google said it receives “around 20 million contributions per day on Maps and Search.”
New review spam algorithm
Google has announced it was launching the new algorithm in 2013 that is better at detecting and eliminate fraudulent reviews. Google stated that this was an “machine learning algorithm that detects questionable review pattern even faster.” It analyzes “longer-term signals on a daily basis,” like “if a reviewer leaves the same review on multiple businesses or if a business receives a sudden spike in 1 or 5-star reviews.”
The algorithm is used to identify as well “one-off cases and broader attack patterns,” Google said in its report. A network, for instance, of fraudsters falsely stated that at a minimal cost they could provide people with rewarding online work, for example making fake reviews, or even click ads on the web.
Google stated that their algorithm could “quickly identied this surge in suspicious reviews thanks to its ability to continuously analyze patterns, like whether an account had previously posted reviews.” It then was utilized by humans to analyze reviews from businesses that had noticed a recent increase in fraudulent five-star reviews. Google could then make use of these patterns to improve the algorithm in order to eliminate more fraudulent reviews.
The result was Google eliminating 5 million false reviews relating to this fraud in only two weeks.
Check out spam-fighting measures
Google as it does each year it has released some data about how it dealt with fake reviews and contributed to local search results on Google Search and Maps. Here are a few statistics:
- Google has blocked or removed more than 170 million of its policy-breaking reviews by 2023 (up from 45% as of 2022)
- Over 12 million fake profiles of business were wiped out or removed
- 14 million videos on policy-related viloating by 2023 (7 million more than the previous year)
- Over 2 million attempts were blocked to access Business Profiles which did not belong theirs (1 Million more than the previous year)
In the past, Google shared the number of images that were in violation of the law, however they did not include it this year. Google confirmed to me that they had a higher number, Google only wanted to publish the numbers to draw attention to the video this year. Additionally, Google changed how what they are looking for in fake profiles. They went from creating false profiles to reporting fake profiles.
What’s the reason we are concerned. The proliferation of fake and spam-filled information in searches is an issue that we all have to contend with as marketing professionals. We don’t want receiving spam. Neither do any of would like fake reviews written in our clients’ or businesses or business listing. Google has been working to decrease the amount of spam, but like you could imagine, it’s a game of cat and mouse.
