The Google Maps Content Trust & Safety Report is out

[keyserholiday]

You have to love Google math. Google removed 245M reviews. 15.1% were removed because they were deemed fake or misleading. The rest of the percentages don't equal 100%. While Google loves to talk about the strides it makes, it leaves a lot to be desired.

 

[rbradf]

From a practical standpoint it’s really hard to advise clients on how to protect themselves from these sudden review removals when Google offers so little insight into their process. And there's going to be more and more of this with AI growing. So it's more important than ever to align with Google’s guidelines and ever-changing algorithms.

 

[JoyHawkins]

I like looking at how this grows year over year. In 2023, Google removed over 170 million. This is up 45% from 2022. Well in 2024, it's up to 245 million. That's another 44% increase.

While I'm sure Google makes it look like this is because they are getting better at catching fake reviews, to me, it says there are just way more fake reviews.