Google Maps: How Ratings Work – Google offers some ideas on reach and moderation

on the map platform Google Maps There is not only data collected or purchased by the company itself, but also from users who make millions of contributions every day. Above all, ratings and reviews are an important part, with quality playing a major role. Now the team offers interesting insights into how the rating system works and how fake reviews are blocked.

According to their own data, users of Google Maps send millions of reviews per day, which are published on the map platform and also in web searches. But not all reviewers have good intentions or like to provide valuable feedback, but of course it is or will be a spammer’s paradise. Increasingly, it is the case that competitors are intentionally bad – knowing full well that many people look at these reviews beforehand.

To filter this, Google Maps has developed a three-stage system: as soon as you click publish, a review is carried out through the algorithms to filter out obvious spam. If you pass this step, the review can be published immediately. But even then, the algorithms check the rating for suspicious patterns and, if necessary, pass them on to the team, which is made up of an unknown manpower size and is trained to “evaluate the ratings” and unlock or block accordingly.

The video attached below shows the whole process well and explains it in English. I think this shows very well how much effort goes into keeping card platform ratings free of such things. And with great success, because personally I have rarely come across ratings or reviews that seem unbelievable or are clearly spam.