Google removed more than 170 million reviews from Maps and Search: Here’s why

Google said it has blocked or removed more than 170 million policy-violating reviews on Maps and Search using new machine learning (ML) algorithms since last year.

Last year, the new algorithm helped the tech giant reduce 45% more fake reviews than the year before.

More than 12 million fake business profiles were also intercepted, the company said.

“Last year, we launched a new machine learning algorithm that can detect suspicious review patterns more quickly. It does this by checking for long-term signals on a daily basis, such as whether a reviewer has left the same review for multiple businesses , or if a business receives a sudden surge in 1- or 5-star reviews,” Google said in a blog post.

Additionally, the company said improvements to its video moderation algorithms, such as detecting fake overlapping phone numbers, helped it catch 14 million policy-violating videos in 2023, an increase of 7 million from the previous year.

Business owners were protected from more than 2 million attempts by hackers to claim business data that did not belong to them, an increase of more than 1 million times from 2022.

Google noted that more than 123,000 businesses were temporarily protected after the company’s systems detected suspicious activity and abuse.

Last year, Google filed a lawsuit against a malicious actor who had been posting fake reviews on Maps and trying to fraudulently manipulate services to small businesses.

(This article has not been edited by News18 staff and is published by IANS, the associated news agency)