Google credits Gemini for better detection of fake business reviews and maps spam

Google is crediting its AI advancement, such as Gemini, to help detect and remove fake reviews and listings within Google Maps. “AI has been a pivotal tool in helping us stop scammers in their tracks, and we’re now using it to scale our protections even more,” Google wrote.

The metrics. Google shared these metrics for its battle over Google Maps spam:

• Google blocked or removed more than 240 million policy-violating removed more than 240 million policy-violating reviews from 2024. Google added that “the vast majority of which were removed before they were seen.”
• Google blocked or removed more than 70 million policy-violating edits to places on Google Maps.
• Google removed or blocked more than 12 million fake Business Profiles.
• Google placed posting restrictions on more than 900,000 accounts that repeatedly violated our policies.

When you compare the metrics to last year’s report, Google removed about 40% more policy-violating reviews.

Disabling reviews. Google also spoke about its newish feature to disable the ability to post reviews on some business profiles. The notice says “Posting reviews is turned off for this place” and was actually launched in December 2023, from what I can tell. But Google seems to be mentioning it now.

Google said it “rolled out alerts in the U.S., U.K. and India to let you know if we’ve recently removed suspicious five-star reviews in certain circumstances. These warnings — which will expand globally starting next month — help you understand quickly if a place may be engaging in unfair review practices.”

Here is what it looks like:

Crediting Gemini. Google said:

“AI has been a pivotal tool in helping us stop scammers in their tracks, and we’re now using it to scale our protections even more. Last year, we removed over 10,000 listings managed by a group of bad actors who impersonated real locksmiths to take over unclaimed Business Profiles and overcharge unsuspecting customers. Beyond removing the fraudulent content, we filed a lawsuit against the bad actors and are actively applying what we learned to enhance our detection systems.”

“This new model has already helped us block thousands of suspicious Business Profile edits this year,” Google added.

Why we care. If you are in the local SEO space, none of this is probably new to you. You’ve all seen the swarm of complaints about business edits placing a business in a suspension, reviews not being able to be added to a business profile, listings confusion and so much more.

Much of this is likely associated with Google’s new methods to detect and fight spam on Google Maps. Some of these changes may be a bit overzealous but Google has a tough job with fighting spam on Google Maps.