Fake Google Reviews are the Worst—Here's How to Spot Them

All small businesses are after 3 things: more exposure, more credibility, and more customers. With Google Reviews being the fastest-growing online review platform, it’s a great place to collect positive reviews that boost your online reputation and allow you to achieve all three.

When your perfect customers are looking in your area for your services, not only do you show up on Google Maps but you show up with good Google reviews. Google Maps reviews are great at driving physical traffic to your store. Google reviews also help you get seen in search results and a good SEO ranking drives digital traffic to your website.

Wondering if a review is fake or not? Here’s how to spot fake Google reviews and how to proceed if you find one. We have gathered several tips on how to check your reviews as well as what to do when you need to report one below.

Why Spotting Fake Google Reviews is Crucial

As with everything online, with the good comes the bad. Fake negative Google reviews can interfere with the online reputation you’ve spent years building and sully your brand online, ultimately driving customers away and into the arms of competitors. That is why spotting fake reviews can be critical.

So how do you navigate the world of Google reviews to elevate your business through positive reviews while avoiding the impact of fake negative feedback? Can you take legal action? Fortunately, you can report fake reviews to Google. Google will remove these reviews if they find it wasn’t honest feedback from a genuine customer.

First, you’ve got to spot the real from the fake among your online reviews. The first step is to check in on them regularly and maintain your online presence for potential and new customers.

How to Tell if Google Reviews Are Fake

It may seem confusing to figure out if reviews are real or fake, but there are some tips to help you sort through the reviews and maintain your online presence and reputation.

Check the reviewer’s profile and history.

One thing to remember is to check the reviewer’s profile and what kind of history the profile has. If they leave reviews everywhere and their reviews sound similar, there may be a good chance the reviews are fake. Check to see if the reviewer has submitted feedback on other businesses as well. If they have reviewed multiple businesses, the reviews will show up on the side panel when their profile is clicked.

Have they written an unusually high number of reviews? Do they look like a client or potential customers? If they are leaving only one-star reviews, it could indicate the account is fake. In addition, if pieces of the account are written in broken English, the profile might be fake.

Always check the reviewer’s history and overall score. You should also check the pictures that are posted. These clues will indicate whether the review is genuine or not. Fake accounts often have pictures of people that seem ‘off.’ They may also have details that look unusual in addition to being a brand-new profile.

Look for spammy content.

Another important step is paying attention to the details. Read the review carefully. Is the grammar acceptable?  Is the language repetitive? Does the review read naturally, or does it have phrases that are strange and out of context? Does it seem like they are trying to sell you the product on Amazon? This is an important area you need to be careful with. Pay attention to things like too many exclamation points and strange spellings.

Spammy content can look like advertising or repetitive language. You may also be able to check if the review is similar in structure and language to other reviews found online.

Look at the time and date.

Reviews will have time and date stamps. These are important details to check because if there are several reviews posted at the same time, there is a high probability they were purchased and are fake. Some companies buy reviews in bulk to have these posted on their online profiles. Several reviews posted at the same time and date are likely fake.

Review the writing style and language.

Reading the reviews is an important tool for figuring out if they are fake or not. Aside from understanding the content of the review, you must also pay attention to the way the review was written. The writing should sound natural, and the language should be almost casual or conversational. If it sounds like an average person reviewing your item, then likely the review isn’t fake.

But if the review sounds stilted, off, or like a sales pitch, you may have a fake review. Another giveaway is when the review is written in poor English. This is often a mark of purchased reviews.

Watch out for bulk reviews.

When you see a massive amount of Amazon reviews or other reviews all using the same wording, check the profiles of the people who posted these reviews. Looking at the profile of the person who reviewed your business and then seeing what other reviews they posted will give you clues. If you see the same review in several places, there is a good chance it was part of a bulk purchase. You will want to comb through the details and compare reviews.

Keep track of unusual activity on your listing.

You will also need to keep track of activities on your listing. This will give you a benchmark of what normal activity on your listing looks like, so you will recognize when the listing activity starts to look strange. This might be reviews from out of the country or reviews from people you are certain haven’t used your business or services. You need to monitor your online presence from all your social media accounts regularly as well to see if any activity looks strange.

While there is no surefire way to spot a fake Google review from your end, there are some signs to look out for when dealing with negative Google reviews. Sadly, some businesses will go to the lengths of buying Google reviews that support their own business and then buying negative reviews to take down their competitors. That means these online reviews are written by scammers who often post them in bulk and therefore they are pretty poor-quality.

Many fake reviews will be:

• Spammy with loads of exclamation marks, misspelled words, and grammatical errors.
• Irrelevant to your business because they talk about products you don’t sell.
• Too generalized, i.e., they won’t include any details specific to your business because it’s been a copy-and-paste job.
• Posted by a questionable account with a weird name, email address, and profile with either no other reviews posted or loads of other suspiciously similar negative reviews.

If a bad review doesn’t seem real, don’t let it override all your positive online reviews. Follow this process of dealing with fake negative Google reviews.

What to Do if You Get a Fake Google Review

Yes, follow the Google reviews process for reporting fake reviews which we’ve outlined below. But that’s not it. Bad reviews can take a while to be removed by Google and you don’t want potential clients who visit your business page to be put off during the wait.

As well as following your strategy of getting more Google reviews to drown out the fake, it might be worth responding to the spam review. It shows you’re actively engaging with customer feedback and willing to do what you can to make amends. Not that a fake reviewer will care about what you offer. It’s your browsing prospects that need to see this demonstration of good customer service.

It’s also important to collect proof of the negative review being fake. Google doesn’t accept all removal requests. They may follow up with you for more information. Be ready to prove your case with the nature of the review itself (for example, does it mention buying furniture but your business is in the cryptocurrency sector?) and the credibility of the account such as screenshots that they’ve been leaving similar reviews on other business profiles. From your records, can you prove that they are not a real customer? Have all the necessary information ready in case Google asks for it.

Do keep track of your removal request to make sure it is being dealt with. Google is the most popular of the review platforms, so they are going to get thousands of similar requests. You don’t want to get forgotten. Follow up with them if there’s no change in your request status after a few days.

How to Report Fake Google Reviews: Step-by-Step Guide

Once you’ve figured out a Google Review is fake, you can report it through your Google Business profile. Here is the breakdown of the process you will go through to report fake Google reviews.

• Click on the reviews tab to see all your business’ Google reviews.
• Click on the 3 dots to the right of the Google Review and select Flag as inappropriate.
• Then a survey will pop up. Select your reason for flagging the online review. In this case, it’s spam.
• Submit your answer and that’s it. Your removal request has been sent.
• Remember the removal process isn’t automatic so keep an eye out for follow-up emails from Google and check the status of your request to make sure it is progressing. In the meantime, just focus on getting more Google reviews— positive reviews, that is!

How to Respond to Negative Google Reviews

When you decide to Google my business, you may find that genuine unhappy reviews do exist. That’s the risk of opening your business up for customer feedback to gain valuable insights and boost your brand online. It’s something you need to brief your customer support team on in case they see a bad review that has no signs of being fake or Google determines it’s not spam.

If that is the case, whether the negativity was warranted or not, here’s how to respond to new Google reviews that don’t put your business in the best light.

• Address the customer by name.
• A personalized and considered response is highly thought of by customers. It shows you care.
• Apologize for the bad experience.

Again, this shows a level of empathy that is appreciated. There’s no point in getting defensive at the risk of starting a fight on the internet. Not a good look for your business listing.

Offer to take the conversation offline. This can be key to your reputation management.

Conflicts should be dealt with privately. You don’t want to draw attention to it and away from the good reviews. It also means you can ask for private details to help resolve the issue.

Let them know you plan to make some changes.

Showing you’re willing to change and provide a better service for your customers has a positive impact on reputation management.

In a way, how you handle challenging customers says as much about your business and your customer service as your good Google reviews. How a company acts online has the potential to attract or put off its target market.

How to Remove Fake Google Reviews

Below, we’ve outlined the step-by-step process of removing fake Google reviews.

1. Make sure the review is false.

One thing you need to do with your business listing is make sure there are false reviews and pay attention to what is on Yelp, Google, or Amazon. You need to make sure the customer reviews are indeed fake. Make sure to go through the above suggestions to make sure the review is not authentic or genuine. This may be the case with a reviewer who has left several one-star reviews for the same company.

2. Access your Google Business profile and go to the Reviews section.

Select the Review tab from your list of options. Business owners need to log in to their Google My Business account regularly to check on activities on their account. This is also true for other accounts on review sites such as Yelp as well. This will make it easy to identify any unusual activity and minimize the damage that these could cause.

3. Flag the review and report to Google Support.

Once you have selected a review you think is fake, you will see three dots on the right-hand side. Click these and find the ‘Flag as inappropriate’ option. Click this option and select to have the review flagged. You should do this for all false reviews or false accounts.

4. Complete the follow-up survey.

Next, business owners need to tell a bit more about the surveys you flagged with Google. They need to know why the review was flagged for removal. When you click on the survey you will have several options available to select from. You will need to hit submit from here and then see how Google responds.

5. Publicly respond to the review.

Responding to genuine reviews on your Google profile is important. This is true in any case you can’t get a review removed. It is important to respond to each review you receive. Make apologies and ask what you can do to help resolve the issue. This is one of the best ways to out a fake review. If the review is indeed fake, chances are you won’t get a response.

How to Respond to Fake Google Reviews?

When you have evaluated a review and discovered it is fake, you need to respond. But how? The best way is to immediately flag the review as fake. From there, Google will look at all the details and determine whether the review violates their Review Guidelines. If this is the case, replying is the best way to manage potential negative effects.

Need Help Managing Reviews? Try Podium.

From boosting your local SEO ranking and making your company name known to more leads visiting your store after finding you on Google Maps, there’s a lot to gain from Google reviews. As your business grows and you have more reviews coming in, it can be difficult to keep track of them all, responding to positive ones and handling fewer positive ones. The more star reviews you get, the more important it is to protect your brand online and have the proper tools to manage Google reviews.

Podium helps you streamline your communication with your target market through text, website chats reviews, and more. You’ve probably heard of Google Review bots, a way to monitor your Google reviews as they come in. We take it a step further with a tool that integrates monitoring Google reviews as well as setting up text messaging so you can ask customers to leave reviews.

We offer the latest in AI technology as well as templates and tools for keeping your business organized.

You don’t need a review bot or to buy Google reviews for your business to succeed. In fact, we wouldn’t recommend it. You just need Podium.