SEARCHENGINES

Google Maps Details How It Handles Review Spam & Policy Enforcement

Published

2 years ago

February 4, 2022

Google Maps Details How It Handles Review Spam & Policy Enforcement

I believe for the first time, Google has provided more detail on how it handles review spam policy enforcement for Google Maps. The search company wrote a blog post, accompanied by a short video, describing what they do to tackle issues with reviews in Google Maps.

The blog post goes over the policies, the enforcement of the policies, how Google moderates reviews with machine learning and human help and more.

Here is the video if you want to watch it first or not:

Google said “when governments and businesses started requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccine before entering certain places, we put extra protections in place to remove Google reviews that criticize a business for its health and safety policies or for complying with a vaccine mandate.” So I asked some local SEO experts on this and this is what I heard:

I can offer one perspective. My hospital has seen a handful of antivaxxer review bombs automatically removed by Google following several incidents that received widespread attention.
— Jared Caraway (@jaredcarawaytx) February 2, 2022

I haven’t read Google’s piece yet but it is conceivable that rants against masking are proactively removed.
That being said their whole moderation system is flawed, under trained and under staffed and all too often misses obvious abuses
— Mike Blumenthal (@mblumenthal) February 2, 2022

Google added it uses both humans and algorithms to fight review spam, and machine learning is Google’s “first line of defense,” the company said. Google’s algorithms look at reviews from these angles:

The content of the review: Does it contain offensive or off-topic content?

The account that left the review: Does the Google account have any history of suspicious behavior?

The place itself: Has there been uncharacteristic activity — such as an abundance of reviews over a short period of time? Has it recently gotten attention in the news or on social media that would motivate people to leave fraudulent reviews?

Google’s automated methods look for patterns, Google disclosed a couple patterns it looks for including (1) a group of people leaving reviews on the same cluster of Business Profiles to a business or (2) a single place receiving an unusually high number of 1 or 5-star reviews over a short period of time.

Google said its “human operators regularly run quality tests and complete additional training to remove bias from the machine learning models.”

But while the automated methods act quickly, sometimes things do need human review. And humans can flag reviews in the platform for human review. Google said its “human operators works around the clock to review flagged content. When we find reviews that violate our policies, we remove them from Google and, in some cases, suspend the user account or even pursue litigation.”

Anyway, we all know Google has its issues, espesially with map spam and review spam – but it is nice to see Google trying to be more transparent about it – on some level.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

Related Topics:Details Enforcement Google Handles Maps Policy review spam

Up Next

Google For Education Swag With Google Highlighters

Don't Miss

Google Testing Lens Button In Search Bar On Desktop Search

Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

SEARCHENGINES

Mikhail Parakhin Confirms He Is No Longer Working On Copilot At Microsoft

Published

13 hours ago

May 12, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Mikhail Parakhin, the former head of Bing Search and Microsoft Advertising at Microsoft, confirmed he is no longer working on the Copilot project. He stepped down as the head of Bing Search and Microsoft Advertising weeks ago after Microsoft hired Mustafa Suleyman as the CEO of AI at Microsoft.

We knew Mikhail Parakhin was planning to work on something new but now Mikhail Parakhin confirmed that he is no longer working on Copilot.

He said on X, “Not working on Copilot anymore, onto new things.”

I did follow up and asked if “onto new things” means new things within Microsoft or new things at a new company but I did not hear back on that. His LinkedIn profile still shows he is at Microsoft.

Here are those posts:

I know, those were the best 🙂
— Mikhail Parakhin (@MParakhin) May 9, 2024

Not working on Copilot anymore, onto new things.
— Mikhail Parakhin (@MParakhin) May 9, 2024

I am super interested in what Mikhail is working on now and I suspect he will tell us soon.

I deeply miss his transparent and frequent posts about what Microsoft is working on with Copilot and Bing Search…

Forum discussion at X.

SEARCHENGINES

Daily Search Forum Recap: May 10, 2024

Published

2 days ago

May 11, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Google says site reputation abuse is not about links, it is about content. Google Local Service Ads ranking removed proximity as a ranking signal. Google Shopping may soon tell searchers how many shoppers purchased at your e-commerce site. Google Local panels now can show the owner of the business. Mikhail Parakhin from Microsoft confirmed he is no longer working on Copilot. Plus, I posted the weekly SEO video recap.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google: Site Reputation Abuse Isn’t About Linking

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, made it crystal clear that the site reputation abuse policy has zero to do with linking. This means that who you link to and/or who links to you has no impact on this new policy that Google began enforcing with manual actions earlier this week.

Google May Show How Many Shoppers Purchased On Your E-Commerce Site

Google has sent some Google Merchant Center e-commerce site managers notifications that a new annotation may begin to show up in the search results next to their site’s listing that shows how many searchers purchased on your site. It may read, “1K shopped here recently.”

Google: Proximity Not A Relevancy Factor For Local Service Ads

Google has updated its Local Services Ads help document on ad rankings to remove the line around “proximity to potential customers’ locations” is a ranking factor for those ads. Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, said the document was updated but there was no recent or “sudden change to ranking considerations” to LSA rankings or positions.

Google Local Panel With Owner Attribute

Google can show the owner of the business in the local panels in the Google search results. I suspect this is not new but I don’t believe I’ve seen this before, where Google will add an “owner” attribute to the local panel.

Mikhail Parakhin No Longer Working On Copilot At Microsoft

Mikhail Parakhin, the former head of Bing Search and Microsoft Advertising at Microsoft, confirmed he is no longer working on the Copilot project. He stepped down as the head of Bing Search and Microsoft Advertising weeks ago after Microsoft hired Mustafa Suleyman as the CEO of AI at Microsoft.

Google Ads Cyclone Money Machine

I found this photo funny. It is one of those cyclone money machines that money flies around in, and a person inside is supposed to try to grab as much money as possible. Well, there is a Google Ads logo on this one. Oh, the irony of this photo…

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Search Ranking Volatility, Site Reputation Abuse Enforcement, Pichai On Search Quality, HCU Recovery & More

Google may have had two search ranking algorithm updates, one around May 9th and one around May 3rd. Google began its site reputation abuse policy enforcement this week with manual actions, and it is not about linking. Google said sites may recover from the helpful content update. Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, responded…

Other Great Search Threads:

Search Engine Land Stories:

Feedback:

Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.

SEARCHENGINES

Google Search Ranking Volatility, Site Reputation Abuse Enforcement, Pichai On Search Quality, HCU Recovery & More

Published

3 days ago

May 10, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Google Search Ranking Volatility, Site Reputation Abuse Enforcement, Pichai On Search Quality, HCU Recovery & More

For the original iTunes version, click here.

Google may have had two search ranking algorithm updates, one around May 9th and one around May 3rd. Google began its site reputation abuse policy enforcement this week with manual actions, and it is not about linking. Google said sites may recover from the helpful content update. Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, responded to search quality issues in an interview. Google is now hiding the number of search results under the tools menu. Google will remove the disavow link tool at some point. Gemini stopped linking to sources. Google renamed AI Answers back to AI Overview. Google is testing a new Notes button in Search. Google SGE said you should drink urine to pass a kidney stone. Google has product review summary labels. Google may show searchers how many people purchased on your e-commerce site. Google Ads new Performance Max for marketplaces. Rumors of 25% of Google Ads accounts being audited are false. Bing is testing clearer distinctions between free and paid search results. Google LSAs ranking help document removed that proximity is used for ranking. Google Local Business Profiles is testing a new review listing. Google Search is testing showing only local results for near me queries. Google Analytics gained Google Ads conversion performance beta reporting. Statcounter said Google didn’t lose market share, it was a bug in the reporting. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Sponsored by Similarweb, the all-in-one- strategic SEO software. Get clarity of the SEO landscape through competitor analysis, keyword research, rank tracking, SERP insights and more. With industry-leading traffic and keyword data, based on real user journeys, Similarweb gives SEO professionals the whole picture so they can strategize smartly and drive sustainable business growth.

Make sure to subscribe to our video feed or subscribe directly on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your favorite podcast player to be notified of these updates and download the video in the background. Here is the YouTube version of the feed:

Search Topics of Discussion:

Please do subscribe on YouTube or subscribe via iTunes or on your favorite RSS reader. Don’t forget to comment below with the right answer and good luck!