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Fake Review Forensics

Guides and analysis on fake reviews, review manipulation patterns, and reputation forensics. Updated when the data is.

Featured · Guides

Can Employees or Family Review Your Business? The Insider-Review Rules

Employees, owners and relatives who review their own business without disclosing the link are posting insider reviews, which the FTC's Consumer Review Rule lists as prohibited. The FTC sent warning letters to ten unnamed companies in December 2025, and the UK's CMA is investigating whether a funeral company asked staff to post reviews. The safe approach is to ask real customers, treat them all alike, and keep staff and family out.

Andrew Keymaster · Oct 26, 2026 · 5 min read

Trends

UK Regulator Opens Five Fake-Review Investigations: What They Cover

The CMA opened five consumer-law investigations into fake and misleading reviews on 27 March 2026. Only some involve fabricated reviews; the rest are about incentives, insiders and filtered ratings.

Andrew Keymaster · Oct 25, 2026 · 6 min

Trends

Fake-Review Signals Across 825 Places: Our Data, October 2026

As of October 2026, 570 of 825 analyzed Google Maps places come back Clean and 28 reach Likely Manipulated. Here is how the verdict split, score distribution and signals changed since our July release.

Andrew Keymaster · Oct 19, 2026 · 5 min

Trends

Which Kinds of Restaurants Get Flagged Most? Burgers, Pizza, Breakfast and More

Across 309 labeled restaurants in Revdict's catalog, burger, fast-food and pizza places were flagged 5.4% of the time against 20.6% for other restaurant types. Smaller groups like breakfast and Brazilian spots run higher, with caveats.

Andrew Keymaster · Oct 12, 2026 · 5 min

Trends

Fake-Review Signals by US City: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami Compared

We compared manipulation scores across the biggest US city samples in Revdict's catalog. The averages are close, but the share of flagged places runs from 2% in Chicago to 22% in Los Angeles. Here is what the October 2026 data does and does not show.

Andrew Keymaster · Oct 10, 2026 · 5 min

Do Near-Perfect Google Ratings Score Worse? — Revdict

Trends

Do Near-Perfect Google Ratings Score Worse? What 680 Places Show

We grouped 680 analyzed Google Maps places by star rating and review count. Places rated 5.0 averaged 49.2 on our manipulation score, against 19.8 for places rated 4.0 to 4.4. Here is the full breakdown, as of October 2026.

Andrew Keymaster · Oct 3, 2026 · 5 min

Do Fake-Review Signals Vary by Country? Our Data — Revdict

Trends

Do Fake-Review Signals Vary by Country? What Our Data Shows

We compared average manipulation scores across the 659 places in our catalog, grouped by country. The US and UK track close together; several other markets run higher, but mostly because the businesses are smaller, not because the country is different.

Andrew Keymaster · Sep 27, 2026 · 6 min

Guides

How to Check a Hotel's Reviews Before You Book

A star rating built on a review burst can look identical to one earned night after night. Here's how to read a hotel's review timeline before you book, with a real burst example and what a clean pattern looks like by comparison.

Andrew Keymaster · Sep 25, 2026 · 6 min

Guides

How to Check a Doctor's or Dentist's Reviews Before You Book

A step-by-step checklist for spotting a manipulated review record on a doctor's or dentist's Google listing, grounded in real practice examples and a 2026 study finding roughly a quarter of clinician reviews analyzed were fraudulent.

Andrew Keymaster · Sep 20, 2026 · 7 min

Education

The Rating-Text Mismatch Signal: When the Stars and the Words Disagree

Rating-text mismatch flags a five-star review with no real detail, or a one-star review with no actual complaint in it. It's the lightest of our four signals alone, but it sharpens every other flag it appears next to.

Andrew Keymaster · Sep 18, 2026 · 7 min

Duplicate Text and Generic Accounts: The Rarest Fake-Review Signals — Revdict

Education

Duplicate Text and Generic Accounts: The Rarest (and Most Telling) Fake-Review Signals

Duplicate text and generic accounts are the two rarest signals in our fake-review scoring model, flagging just 283 and 526 reviews out of 92,359 flagged as of September 2026. They're also the closest thing to catching manipulation in the act, rather than inferring it from timing alone.

Andrew Keymaster · Sep 13, 2026 · 6 min

Guides

How to Ask Customers for Reviews Without Breaking FTC or Google's Rules

Asking every customer for a review is legal and effective, but the FTC's Consumer Review Rule and Google's 2026 Rating Manipulation Policy narrow exactly how you can do it. This guide lays out what a compliant request process looks like, with a do/don't table and a template you can use as-is.

Andrew Keymaster · Sep 11, 2026 · 6 min

Guides

How to Check a Contractor's Reviews Before You Hire Them

A star average tells you nothing about whether a contractor's reviews are real. Here is a practical checklist for spotting a manufactured review history before you pay a deposit, grounded in real roofing and plumbing listings and the FTC's first fake-listings case against a home-repair operation.

Andrew Keymaster · Sep 7, 2026 · 6 min

Education

The Low-Activity Account Signal: Our Most Common Fake-Review Flag, Explained

Low-activity reviewer accounts, profiles with no other reviews, photos, or history, make up 91% of everything Revdict flags. Here is why the signal is so common, why it is not proof by itself, and how it combines with other patterns to move a verdict.

Andrew Keymaster · Sep 4, 2026 · 6 min

What Is a 'Review Drive'? Manipulation Signal Explained — Revdict

Education

What Is a 'Review Drive'? The Manipulation Pattern Where the Customers Are Real

Our scoring model flags a distinct pattern separate from fake or bought reviews: staff prompting real customers, in a compressed burst, to leave five-star reviews naming a specific employee. Here's how it's detected, how often it shows up, and why Google banned the practice in April 2026.

Andrew Keymaster · Aug 31, 2026 · 6 min

Guides

Can a Business Sue You for a Negative Google Review?

An Ohio manufacturer's August 2026 defamation suit over a one-star Google review raises a real question for anyone who leaves honest feedback: what actually counts as defamation, and does your state's anti-SLAPP law protect you?

Andrew Keymaster · Aug 29, 2026 · 7 min

Guides

What to Do If Someone Threatens Fake Negative Reviews Unless You Pay

A scam is hitting small businesses nationwide: a stranger threatens to flood your Google listing with fake negative reviews unless you pay, then often keeps demanding money even after you do. Here's exactly what to document and where to report it, to Google and separately to federal law enforcement.

Andrew Keymaster · Aug 24, 2026 · 6 min

Trends

Amazon and BBB Won a Permanent Injunction Against a Fake-Review Broker

A King County court permanently barred a review-selling operation from serving Amazon and the Better Business Bureau, in the first joint fake-review suit the two have filed together. The broker economy the case describes works the same way on Google Maps.

Andrew Keymaster · Aug 22, 2026 · 6 min

Comparisons

Free Fake-Review Checkers Compared: What Each One Actually Covers

No single free tool checks fake reviews everywhere — Revdict analyzes Google Maps businesses, ReviewMeta analyzes Amazon products, and Fakespot, once the best-known name in the category, shut down for good in July 2025. Here's what each tool actually covers, what it can't tell you, and which one fits the review you're looking at.

Andrew Keymaster · Aug 16, 2026 · 5 min

Guides

Is Review Gating Illegal? What the FTC and Google's 2026 Rules Actually Ban

Review gating — asking only your happiest customers for a review — sits closer to illegal than most businesses realize. The FTC's Consumer Review Rule bans the sentiment-based incentives and suppression that most gating setups rely on, and Google's April 2026 policy update closed the rest of the gap. Here's exactly what's banned and what's still allowed.

Andrew Keymaster · Aug 13, 2026 · 7 min