Google has been releasing an annual report on the number of reviews blocked or removed for several years now. In a Googler’s post, 292 million reviews were blocked, and 13 million were removed in 2025. The post states that while 292 million reviews were blocked, 1 billion reviews were posted and are live. Google blocked 29.2% of all reviews written in 2025. The 292 million reviews are a 21.6% increase over 2024. 2025 had the highest number of blocked reviews. The 13 million removed reviews are only 1 million more than both 2024 and 2023.
One of the contributing factors in the increase in reviews being removed is the spate of extortion review attack schemes. 2025 seemed to have a major uptick in extortion review attack schemes. Google released the merchant extortion report form. It does seem to have quieted down, as I haven’t seen any complaints lately.
What is interesting is that in 2022, Google removed 20 million reviews, the highest number. That year, only 115 million reviews were blocked. The number of blocked reviews has increased, while the total number of reviews has remained slightly unchanged.
So, why are Reddit and the help forum seeing an increase in reviews being removed since February 2025? Several people have mentioned a five-day review removal process. Google seems to remove reviews five days after they are posted. Is this part of the Gemini process? It is interesting to note the patterns where we see upticks in help forum threads. November and Decemeber 2025 were two months. The spike started in October 2025 and dropped in January 2025. In February, we saw it spike, then slightly drop in March. April is on pace to surpass February.
The post did state there are plans to, “If we do see a sudden spike in spam reviews, we’ll quickly remove the fake content, pause new reviews on the profile, alert the Business Profile owner and display a notification banner to let consumers know why contributions are temporarily paused. These protections are rolling out globally in the coming weeks.”
I wonder what these warnings will look like. City Farm Roslindale Weed Dispensary received a consumer alert when Google removed what it perceived as fake reviews from its GBP. There are a few businesses I will be keeping an eye on as they have routinely violated Google’s TOS.
