Tag Archives: reviews

In reviews we trust — Making Google Play ratings and reviews more trustworthy

Posted by Fei Ye, Software Engineer and Kazushi Nagayama, Ninja Spamologist

Google Play ratings and reviews are extremely important in helping users decide which apps to install. Unfortunately, fake and misleading reviews can undermine users' trust in those ratings. User trust is a top priority for us at Google Play, and we are continuously working to make sure that the ratings and reviews shown in our store are not being manipulated.

There are various ways in which ratings and reviews may violate our developer guidelines:

  • Bad content: Reviews that are profane, hateful, or off-topic.
  • Fake ratings: Ratings and reviews meant to manipulate an app's average rating or top reviews. We've seen different approaches to manipulate the average rating; from 5-star attacks to positively boost an app's average rating, to 1-star attacks to influence it negatively.
  • Incentivized ratings: Ratings and reviews given by real humans in exchange for money or valuable items.

When we see these, we take action on the app itself, as well as the review or rating in question.

In 2018, the Google Play Trust & Safety teams deployed a system that combines human intelligence with machine learning to detect and enforce policy violations in ratings and reviews. A team of engineers and analysts closely monitor and study suspicious activities in Play's ratings and reviews, and improve the model's precision and recall on a regular basis. We also regularly ask skilled reviewers to check the decisions made by our models for quality assurance.

It's a big job. To give you a sense of the volume we manage, here are some numbers from a recent week:

  • Millions of reviews and ratings detected and removed from the Play Store.
  • Thousands of bad apps identified due to suspicious reviews and rating activities on them.

Our team can do a lot, but we need your help to keep Google Play a safe and trusted place for apps and games.

If you're a developer, you can help us by doing the following:

  • Don't buy fake or incentivized ratings.
  • Don't run campaigns, in-app or otherwise, like "Give us 5 stars and we'll give you this in-app item!" That counts as incentivized ratings, and it's prohibited by policy.
  • Do read the Google Play Developer Policy to make sure you are not inadvertently making violations.

Example of a violation: incentivized ratings is not allowed

If you're a user, you can follow these simple guidelines as well:

  • Don't accept or receive money or goods (even virtual ones) in exchange for reviews and ratings.
  • Don't use profanity to criticize an app or game; keep your feedback constructive.
  • Don't post gibberish, hateful, sexual, profane or off-topic reviews; they simply aren't allowed.
  • Do read the comment posting policy. It's pretty concise and talks about all the things you should consider when posting a review to the public.

Finally, if you find bad ratings and reviews on Google Play, help us improve by sending your feedback! Users can mark the review as "Spam" and developers can submit feedback through the Play Console.

Tooltip to flag the review as Spam.

Thanks for helping us keep Google Play a safe and trusted place to discover some of the world's best apps and games.

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Google Play’s policy on incentivized ratings, reviews, and installs

Posted by Kazushi Nagayama, Ninja Spamologist and Bryan Woodward, Policy Specialist

Ensuring Google Play remains trusted and secure is one of our top priorities. We've recently announced improvements in fighting spam installs as well as fake ratings & reviews. In order to underscore these announcements and provide more clarity, we have now updated our Developer Program Policies on incentivized ratings, reviews, and installs:


Developers must not attempt to manipulate the placement of any apps in the Store. This includes, but is not limited to, inflating product ratings, reviews, or install counts by illegitimate means, such as fraudulent or incentivized installs, reviews and ratings.


Defining an incentivized action

We deem an action to be incentivized if a user is offered money, goods, or the equivalent in exchange for the action – be it a rating, review or install. Incentivized ratings and reviews have always been against our policies and we will continue to take action against them in order to protect the integrity of our store. Installs done with the intent to manipulate the placement of an app in Google Play will be detected and filtered.

Incentivized installs as user acquisition

We've observed instances where incentivized installs are utilized solely to manipulate the placement of apps in Google Play; these instances are a policy violation. However, we also recognize that incentivized installs can be a legitimate user acquisition channel for some developers. In order to recognize these two distinct use cases, we are taking the following approach:

  • Whilst we won't automatically remove apps from the store just because they utilize incentivized installs as one of their user acquisition channels, we will monitor for, and take action against behaviour that compromises the integrity of the store.
  • To address those whose intent we perceive is to manipulate the placements of their apps, we will monitor and filter incentivized installs in our systems, including removal from the top charts. If warranted, identified apps also may be removed from the Store.

Through this approach, we hope to further ensure that the top charts and other discovery mechanisms on Google Play reflect the reality of the popularity of an app.

As a general rule, we advise against utilizing incentivized actions. Incentivized users are a very different user base than users found through other acquisition channels. In an internal analysis, the Google Research team found that incentivized users generally have lower retention rates and make fewer in-app purchases than users found through paid or organic acquisition channels.

For more information on the Google Play policies, please visit the developer policy center. For tips and best practices to find success on Google Play, visit the Android Developers website.

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Use Online Reviews to Connect with Back-to-School Customers

It’s time to get down to business for back-to-school. During this time, students, teachers and parents are relying on reviews while searching online for everything from notebooks to new clothes to campus coffee shops. In fact, 3 in 4 consumers say it’s important to read reviews before visiting a business.1

Business owners like Brian Wood of Sureflow Rooter see the value in customer reviews. “We often ask our customers how they found us: online, word of mouth or advertising? We have been pleasantly surprised to hear them say ‘from Google’ and that they liked our reviews and felt comfortable calling us.”

Small business owners looking to make a good impression on back-to-school shoppers should use tools like Google My Business which allow you to engage with, and manage, customer reviews. Below are a few tips to help you get started:

Tip #1: Just ask
Satisfied customers don’t always remember to write reviews, so it’s important to give them a reminder after they make a purchase or interact with your business – but remember to keep review guidelines in mind. Try including a survey link in your receipts or sending an automated follow-up email, rather than, say, setting up a laptop for reviews in-store, or offering incentives, which violates Google policy.

Tip #2: Be proactive about responding to reviews
It’s important to address both positive and negative reviews, since 83% of customers remember reviews from search results.2 When responding to reviews, it’s always good to thank customers. In the case of a negative review, address the issue without getting defensive. For example, try posting a reply describing the steps you took to remedy the situation.

These personalized responses are an opportunity to build relationships with customers. Don’t be afraid to highlight your business’s personality.

Tip #3: Actively monitor your reviews
Managing reviews is an ongoing process, so you should make sure to check in periodically and stay up-to-date with what your customers are saying. You can do this by checking the reviews section of your Google My Business dashboard.

The Children’s Museum of South Dakota noticed that this method helped their business stay in tune with customer interests. Randy Grimsley, the Director of Marketing, told us, “We regularly check on customer reviews. It’s a quick way to discover what’s working and what may need tweaking.”

Your back-to-school assignment? Apply these lessons to your business, and start getting proactive about online reviews.

For more helpful tips on managing your online reviews, check out: gybo.com/review

Posted by Emily Harris, Program Manager, Let's Put Our Cities on the Map

1. Impact Report: How are Customers Discovering Small Businesses?, May 2016
2. Google/ Ipsos, Impact of Search Listings for Local Businesses. Base: Saw Listing (Control=494, Test= 496), August 2014.