Google is Telling People How to Buy Fake Reviews on Google Maps

Local SEO  |     |  

Local SEO Joe Youngblood posted a tweet showing a screenshot a featured snippet on a Google search result that appears to show Google highlighting exactly how a business can purchase fake reviews to promote their business on Google Maps.

Google said recently that spam on Google Maps only constitutes 1% of content added to the platform daily, but that was of little comfort to businesses who are getting outranked by fake companies using fake reviews. Now it seems finding out exactly how to buy fake reviews on Google Maps isn’t hard at all, since Google will explain how to do it right in their search results and guide you to a website to make your fake review purchase.

Fake reviews are illegal in the USA and the FTC may end up filing charges against a company buying them on Google Maps as they recently did to one company on Amazon. Eventually Google has to find a better way to eliminate fake reviews, it’s likely a better option to keep your focus on getting your real customers to leave reviews than resort to buying fake reviews.