Google Maps has released a new set of rules that punish businesses for creating and posting false positive reviews of themselves or offering incentives to others to give the business rave reviews. Not only will the fake reviews disappear, but businesses will face penalties for using them to begin with.

Google Maps is reeling in business pages engaging in fake reviews, and highlighting such activity to its users. Google will now impose restrictions against business profiles that violate the search giant’s Fake Engagement policy,

Mike Blumenthal spotted the change (via Engadget) and took it to X. In the screenshot he uploaded, the Overview page of a carpet cleaning company shows a warning sign reading, “Suspected fake reviews were recently removed from this place.”

Be 'genuine' or be gone. If you try to game the system with bogus reviews, Google may lock down your page and tell visitors that suspected fake reviews were removed from the account.

Businesses are trying to game Google Maps with fake reviews and Google has had enough. Google has started restricting profiles of businesses that are found to have hosted fake reviews. On its support website,

Google Maps has introduced a feature to warn users about businesses with suspected fraudulent reviews. Initially available in the UK, it now alerts US users about fake reviews and unusual ratings, enhancing transparency and encouraging reporting of misleading content.