How to remove spam and fake iOS and Android reviews

Stats don't lie—79% of users scope out app reviews before hitting download. This means your app's first impression starts on the reviews page. And if fake or nasty reviews are scaring off potential users, that's where their journey ends.

But spotting those sneaky fake reviews is pretty straightforward. The real question is, how do you report them to Google? And what's the game plan for consistently tackling this review spam? This guide lays out exactly how to do that, plus tips to track if your review management strategy is actually working.

This is THE guide for anyone managing app reviews, or for anyone involved in protecting their app’s reputation. Beginning your review management journey? Have been working in the space for years? No matter—read up and you won’t regret it. You’ll take away plenty of new learnings to apply to your own review management flow, and help boost your app’s bottom line.

“Our research shows that apps with a rating under 4 stars lose up to half of their potential downloads. Users simply don’t click on apps with lower ratings – and inappropriate reviews can have a severe impact on your overall score. But build your review management strategy right, and you can make sure up to 80% of these inappropriate fake reviews are deleted.”
– Anatoly Sharifulin, CEO of AppFollow

What are fake reviews?

We've all seen reviews that stink of BS. For AppFollow’s clients, it's part of the job. Fake reviews are misleading ratings that don't reflect real user experiences. They come from bots, competitors, or the developer's overly eager pals. These bogus reviews warp how people see your app. No bueno, so let’s learn more about them.

Consequences of fake reviews for businesses

Fake reviews are a business nightmare on Google and in app stores. They kill your credibility in unexpected ways:

1. Loss of trustworthiness

When potential users see fake reviews, they start to question your entire product. Here’s why it matters:

• Users get suspicious of overly positive or vague reviews
• Confidence in your app quality plummets
• Lost trust is tough to regain

Would you trust a product with nothing but suspiciously glowing Google reviews? Probably not. This, in turn, leads to fewer downloads and customers.

2. App store ranking drops

Both Google and Apple are onto fake reviews. Here’s what can happen if they detect them:

• Your app drops in search results
• Penalties limit your app's visibility
• Harder for real users to find you

Platforms aim to promote genuine content, so letting fake Google reviews pile up is a one-way ticket to obscurity.

3. Negative user impact

Users rely on reviews to make decisions. Here’s how fake reviews affect their experience:

• Users bail if they spot dishonest reviews
• Real users leave negative feedback about the fakes
• Overall rating drops from frustrated customers

Ignoring fake reviews can snowball into bigger issues. It always does, really.

Consequences for those posting fake reviews

While the focus is on businesses, it's worth mentioning the risks for people posting fake Google reviews:

• Accounts can get suspended or banned
• Legal trouble and fines are possible
• Businesses paying for fakes face serious penalties

 Fake reviews hurt your brand, tank rankings, and anger real users. Spot them? Handle them ASAP. It's worth it. So, now that we know the Why of it, let’s get to the How of it.

How to identify malicious app reviews

Many come from real users pointing out actual problems—bugs, missing features, and poor UX. These complaints are valuable. Fix the issues, tell users about it, and they might upgrade their rating.

Then there's the garbage—fake reviews that pop up when your app gets attention or when competitors try to tank your rating. These aren't real feedback. Find them and get rid of them ASAP.

The key: respond fast to real problems, and clean up the fake junk.

Characteristics of fake reviews

Here’s where it gets tricky. They're sneakier than you'd think, often hiding in plain sight among your higher ratings. Here's your comprehensive detection guide:

• Empty praise or criticism: generic "Great app!" or "Terrible!" reviews without specifics. If someone hates your app, more often than not, they’ll take their time to elaborate on why.
• Excessive negativity: one-sided rants without explaining actual problems. Easy to spot.
• Suspicious timing: watch for sudden review clusters—especially after getting featured or during competitor attacks.
• Language quirks: poor grammar or awkward phrasing often signals mass-produced fake reviews. Well, poor grammar could go both ways, while if the reply is obviously AI-generated, then you know what you’re dealing with.
• Mismatched content: reviews praising non-existent features or complaining about irrelevant issues. Someone didn’t do their research before attacking you! How typical.
• Copy-paste jobs: multiple reviews with suspiciously similar wording.
• Off-topic nonsense: reviews that ramble about unrelated topics.

Most devious of all? Fake 4-5 star reviews. While they seem positive, they're actually undermining your app's credibility. A flood of obviously fake positive reviews can damage user trust just as much as negative ones. Your potential users aren't stupid—they can smell something fishy, and it makes your legitimate positive reviews look questionable too.

When you spot these patterns, report them immediately. Every fake review that stays up—whether it's a one-star bomb or a suspiciously glowing five-star review—chips away at your app's reputation. The faster you clean house, the better your chances of maintaining authentic user trust.

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3 Types of inappropriate reviews

Yes, before we start with this: you can't delete them yourself. That power lies with the app store moderators.

When you spot suspicious reviews, report them through official channels. Moderators will evaluate your case against their guidelines. If they agree with you, the review vanishes. If not, it stays put.

Want better odds of successful removals? Study both Apple's and Google's content policies closely. Match your reporting reasons to their specific rules. 

Think strategically about which reviews to challenge. Not every suspicious review will qualify for removal. Focus your efforts on the ones that clearly violate store policies. Document your evidence carefully. Consider building a case if you're seeing patterns of coordinated fake reviews Anyway! There are 3 types of reviews you can report:

1. Spam reviews

Tell-tale signs of spam reviews include:

• Copy-pasted reviews (identical text used for other apps)
• Ads for another service
• Offers of money for reviews
• Reviews with no text
• Reviews containing links to websites, phone numbers, or email addresses
• Meaningless text, just letters like “ghghghg”

2. Aggressive and offensive reviews

Offensive reviews often contain:

• Hate speech
• Uncensored words
• Bullying or harassment
• Sexual content
• Violence or promotion of violence
• Discrimination against others
• Aggressive use of emojis

3. Off-topic and fake reviews

Tell-tale signs of fake reviews include:

• Irrelevant complaints about pricing or ads in the app
• Solicitation, political, or social commentary
• One-word reviews or several identical reviews
• Paid fake reviews by users who’ve never used your app, often hired by competitors to leave poor feedback

Make sure to properly report fake reviews that match these patterns. The right reporting can clean up your app’s Ratings & Reviews section.

Here is a more detailed list of Apple’s Guidelines.

Here is a more detailed list of Google’s Guidelines.

How to report a concern about malicious reviews in app stores

While some reviews won’t even make it through app stores’ policies, the majority will still appear in your app’s Ratings & Reviews section. Once you’ve identified inappropriate, spammy, or malicious app reviews, there are a few ways to report them — either within the store itself or by using third-party tools.

How to Delete Fake iOS Reviews in the App Store

• Go to your console and choose an app that has a review you want to report.
• Click "Activity" > iOS app.
• Find the review you want to report, and click "Report a concern" at the bottom of the review.
• Choose a concern in the pop-up menu and enter a description.
• Click “Submit.”

How to  how to report and delete fake reviews in Google Play

• Go to your console and choose an app with an offensive review and go to the Reviews page.
• Find the review you want to report, click on the flag icon, then select Report.
• A sign will appear above the review stating that the report is under moderation.

Google Play will remove reviews that clearly break their rules. If other users also report a fake review, Google will either delete it or lower its rating so new users won't see it.

Dealing with fake reviews quickly is crucial for your app's reputation. Follow Google's reporting steps to get them handled fast.

How to report fake Google reviews 

Look for obvious fakes: 1-star reviews with no details or irrelevant comments. Watch out for subtle fakes too—they might be hiding in positive reviews with vague praise. Deal with them fast before they hurt your rating.

How to report fake reviews on Google

1. Open Google Play Store app
2. Find the app with the review
3. Scroll to the reviews section
4. Locate the specific review
5. Tap the 3-dot menu (⋮) next to the review
6. Select "Flag as inappropriate"
7. Choose the violation type
8. Submit report

How to remove inappropriate reviews automatically

Manually reporting reviews is a huge waste of time and resources. You could be doing something useful, like actually helping users, instead of dealing with this crap. Yeah, you could hire a part-timer to handle it, but that's just throwing money down the drain. 

Automation is the way to go. Services like AppFollow can automatically find and report bad reviews, so you don't have to spend your days sifting through the mess. It's like having a robot do the dirty work for you, and it can save you a ton of time.

Once you set it up, you can forget about spammy, irrelevant, or nasty reviews tanking your app rating. AppFollow will take care of reporting them for you.

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How to set up automated review reporting

Here’s how to get started:

• Navigate to the “Reply to Reviews” section in the AppFollow dashboard.
• Go to the “Auto-replies” section.
• Add a new rule, and choose the conditions a review should meet to be flagged or deleted.
• Hit “Save” and enjoy your extra free time!

AppFollow lets you add as many rules as you want. As your app gets bigger, update the rules. Look at your old Google reviews and find common keywords used by spammers or bots to catch as many bad reviews as possible.

There's a limit to how many reviews you can report each day. Apple and Google won't say the exact number, but reporting too much can get you flagged. AppFollow's auto-reporting system queues requests and submits no more than 15 reviews per app per day to avoid any issues.

Not sure what rules to set up? Try our manual review reporting for both stores first. Set up tags and quick views for reviews with specific ratings and keywords to access them faster and save a ton of time and money.

How to report reviews to both the App Store and Google Play

If your apps are on both the App Store and Google Play, you might want to report reviews for both from one place. You can't link the consoles yourself, but platforms like AppFollow can do it for you.

To set this up, you’ll need to: 

• Go the “Reply to Review” section and choose your app;
• Filter reviews with the necessary parameters—for example, short with a review rating of 1 star;
• Find the reviews you want to report and click “Report a concern”.

You will need to connect your profile with both consoles to be able to report reviews from AppFollow. 

Read how Viber removes 60% of its spam reviews using AppFollow.

How to evaluate the efficiency of your report-a-concern strategy?

You've set up everything to report fake reviews. Now you need to understand how many of your requests are actually being fulfilled by the app stores.

As mentioned earlier, not all inappropriate reviews will get deleted by the stores' moderators. To improve your chances, figure out what exact wording will help get these reviews removed. Check which reviews have already been deleted and what reasons you used when reporting them.

The only way to do this in the consoles is to save links to the reported reviews with the explanations, and remember to check back in a week or two once your requests have been processed. But AppFollow makes it much easier to check back on concerns right from your dashboard. You can see what this looks like below:

Once you know what requests have been satisfied, it's easier to find and report similar reviews. Delete as many as you can, adjusting your strategy as you learn what reviews are considered spammy, off-topic, or offensive.

Moderators usually take several days to review requests, but it can take up to 2 weeks in rare cases.

If your report isn't satisfied and the review isn't deleted, try reporting it again later if it really goes against app store guidelines. Don't do this more than once or twice though.

For Google Play, collect declined reviews with links in a spreadsheet and send it to their support. For the App Store, report concerns another 1-2 times. This can help you delete up to 15% more of re-reported reviews.

Summary

App review monitoring is critical for success. Your app listing is your shop window—showcase your best reviews to entice users to download. Also, if you’re publishing new apps, another piece for you to read—our guide on app store guidelines.

Above all, make sure that malicious or fake reviews aren’t making their way in. As we’ve seen above, these can seriously harm your brand’s image and app store rating, eventually leading to a loss in installs and revenue. By applying the tips and tricks you’ve learned in this guide, you’ll ensure a watertight strategy to prevent these sorts of reviews from affecting your app. What about other platforms, like Amazon, you say? Here you go: improve your feedback process with the top Amazon feedback software—discover your options here!

FAQs on how to report fake reviews 

How can I report fake reviews on Google?

To report fake reviews on Google, go to your business listing on Google Maps or Search. Find the review in question, click the three dots (⋮), and select "Report review." Choose the reason for reporting (spam, inappropriate content, etc.), and submit it for moderation. Google will review the report and take action if it violates their guidelines.

How long does it take to remove fake reviews?

It depends. Once you report a fake review, Google or app stores will review the report and decide if it breaks their guidelines. This process can take a few days, but sometimes it’s quicker. If the review is flagged as inappropriate, it will be removed shortly after.

Can fake reviews hurt my app's rating?

Yes. Fake reviews, whether overly negative or suspiciously positive, can skew your app’s ratings. This affects how users perceive your app and can reduce downloads. Identifying and reporting them quickly helps maintain your app's credibility.

Can AppFollow help with reporting fake reviews?

Absolutely. AppFollow automates the process of identifying and reporting fake reviews. You can set up rules in the dashboard to flag inappropriate reviews automatically, saving you time and ensuring reviews are reported promptly.

How many reviews can I report in a day?

App stores don’t publicly specify limits on review reporting, but excessive manual reporting can be flagged as abusive. AppFollow’s automated system submits no more than 15 reviews per app per day to stay within safe limits.

How do I set up automatic reporting?

In AppFollow, go to “Reply to Reviews,” then the “Auto-replies” section. Add a new rule to identify fake reviews and click “Save.” The system will automatically report those reviews based on your set conditions.

Grab the checklist while you're at it! >>>