Fake Reviews: How to Spot Them and How to Fight Back

Fake reviews are the dark side of online ratings. Whether it is a competitor deliberately sabotaging you or bought positive reviews — both undermine trust in the whole system. How do you spot fake reviews and what can you do about them?

Types of Fake Reviews

Negative Reviews from Competitors

The most common form — a competitor or someone with a personal grudge writes a negative review without ever having been a real customer. The goal is to drag down your rating and put off potential customers.

Purchased Positive Reviews

Some businesses buy fake positive reviews to look better. This may work in the short term, but Google actively detects these practices and penalises them — including profile suspension.

Reciprocal Reviews

"We'll write each other reviews" — mutual review-writing between businesses or acquaintances. Google can detect these patterns by analysing reviewer profiles.

Bot-Generated Reviews

Automatically generated reviews from fake accounts. They typically have generic text, no account history, and an unnatural pattern.

How to Recognise a Fake Review

The Reviewer's Profile

• New account with no history or minimal activity
• One-time reviewer — wrote a single review (the negative one about your business)
• Geographic mismatch — reviewer is from a different city or country where your business does not operate
• Pattern — the reviewer left negative reviews for several businesses in the same industry on the same day

The Review Content

• Vague text — no specific details about the visit or experience
• Over-the-top emotions — extremely negative language without a concrete complaint
• Does not match reality — describes services you do not offer, or mentions staff members who do not work for you
• Templated text — similar or identical wording to other reviews from the same account

The Timing Pattern

• Sudden influx of negative reviews — if you receive 5 negative reviews in a single day after months of nothing, that is suspicious
• Reviews outside business hours — describes a visit during a time when you were closed

How to Fight Back

1. Report the Review to Google

Any review you suspect is fake can be reported:

1. Open the review in your Google Business profile
2. Click the three dots next to the review
3. Select "Report as inappropriate"
4. Choose a reason (fake review, spam, conflict of interest)

Google will investigate and, if their policies have been violated, remove it. The process can take days to weeks.

2. Respond Professionally

Even to a suspicious review, respond calmly and factually. For example:

"Thank you for your feedback. Unfortunately we are unable to find your visit in our records. If you are a genuine customer, we would be happy for you to contact us directly so we can resolve the issue."

This response clearly signals to other readers that the review may not be authentic.

3. Build a Volume of Authentic Reviews

The best defence against fake negative reviews is a large number of authentic positive reviews. If you have 200 reviews with an average of 4.6, a single fake negative review will barely move the needle.

4. Document Everything

If you are facing a systematic campaign of fake reviews, document it:

• Screenshots of the reviews
• Reviewer profiles
• Timeline of events
• Any suspicion about a specific competitor

This documentation can be used when escalating to Google or, in extreme cases, for legal action.

5. Escalate with Google

If standard reporting does not work, you can contact Google Business support directly or use the form for bulk reporting of fake reviews. For systematic attacks, Google tends to respond more decisively.

Prevention Is Better Than Cure

• Actively collect reviews — the larger the volume, the smaller the impact of any individual fake review
• Monitor new reviews in real time — a fast response is crucial
• Respond to all reviews — this demonstrates active profile management
• Do not engage in fake reviews yourself — retaliating with the same tactics will hurt you more

How Reputive Helps

Reputive notifies you instantly of every new review, so you catch any suspicious rating straight away. And thanks to systematic authentic review collection, you build the kind of volume that minimises the impact of any fake ratings. With AI-suggested responses you can respond quickly and professionally — even to the most unpleasant reviews. It also helps to know how to properly ask customers for reviews — building authentic volume is the best prevention.