Google blocked or removed over 292 million policy-violating reviews and eliminated more than 13 million fake business profiles on Google Maps in 2025, according to the company’s annual Trust and Safety Report released this week.
The figures represent a 21% increase in fake review removals compared to 2024, while fake profile removals remained steady year-over-year. Google also blocked 79 million inaccurate or unverified edits to business information and placed posting restrictions on more than 782,000 policy-violating accounts during the year.
The platform published over 1 billion legitimate reviews in 2025, meaning approximately 22% of all review activity was classified as policy-violating. Google Maps users also suggested 80 million updates to business hours, contact information, and related details throughout the year.
Google announced three new protective measures alongside the safety report, including upgraded systems designed to detect and block review extortion scams before they appear publicly. The scams involve bad actors demanding payment from businesses in exchange for removing fake one-star reviews.
The company deployed its Gemini AI models to automatically identify and block manipulated place edits faster than previous systems, particularly focusing on social or political commentary with local nuance. Gemini’s advanced reasoning capabilities allow the system to spot policy violations before suggested edits go live.
When Google detects a sudden spike in spam reviews targeting a business profile, the platform now removes fake content, pauses new reviews temporarily, alerts the business owner, and displays a notification banner to inform users why contributions are paused. These protections are rolling out globally in the coming weeks.
Google also introduced proactive email alerts for verified business profile owners, allowing them to monitor suggested edits before changes appear publicly. The notification system aims to help business owners maintain accurate profile information while reducing the impact of malicious actors attempting to alter factual business data.
The scale of enforcement reveals ongoing challenges with automated abuse on the platform. Blocking 79 million edits translates to more than 200,000 attempted manipulations per day, while the removal of 13 million fake profiles indicates substantial networks of fraudulent listings operating across the platform.
Industry experts note that spam fighting has become less effective over recent years, partly because businesses have increasingly rebranded to legitimately include keywords in their Google Business Profile names. Common spam tactics include keyword-stuffed names, ineligible business listings, duplicate profiles, and fake locations.
The deployment of Gemini for content moderation reflects a pattern across Google’s product lines. The same AI model family now works on both the presentation layer and integrity layer of Maps data, surfacing business information to users through conversational interfaces while filtering fraudulent content on the backend.
For businesses facing spam attacks, Google recommends using the “Suggest an Edit” feature for simple corrections and escalating to the Business Redressal Complaint Form for severe violations, backed by clear evidence including screenshots, dates, and documentation.
