Every year, Google publishes the Google Maps security report. The 2025 edition confirms a significant increase in the fight against fake reviews and fake profiles supported by artificial intelligence. We share the self-explanatory figures with you.
Key Points:
- Google deleted or blocked 292 million fake reviews in 2025; this represents a 21% increase compared to 2024.
- More than 13 million fake business profiles were removed; this figure remained stable compared to the previous year.
- 79 million incorrect or unverified changes were blocked before publication.
- More than 783,000 violating accounts were subjected to publishing restrictions.
Continuous Increase Since 2019
The historical data published by Google allows us to measure the scale of this development. In 2019, Google deleted 75 million fake reviews. In 2020, this number dropped to 55 million, then increased again: 95 million in 2021, 115 million in 2022, 170 million in 2023, and 240 million in 2024. In 2025, this figure reached 292 million.
The only exception to this trend is the year 2020; in this year, the volume slightly declined. Since then, the curve has been continuously rising. This does not mean that frauds have increased at the same rates; rather, it indicates that Google's detection capabilities have improved, which increases the number of deletions.
Artificial Intelligence at the Center of the Process
Google attributes part of these results to the integration of Gemini; this is an advanced artificial intelligence model. Thanks to its reasoning capabilities, the system can now detect and block content that violates rules before it is published. This particularly includes political or social content that exploits local nuances; such content is a type that is difficult to identify with classic filtering methods.
Artificial intelligence does not only intervene in advance. In the case of a sudden increase in suspicious reviews about a business, Google states that it quickly takes action on several fronts:
- Deletion of fake content,
- Temporary suspension of new reviews on the relevant profile,
- Sending a notification to the business owner about the situation,
- Displaying a visible banner to consumers informing them about the situation.
New Protective Measures for Business Owners
The 2025 report also announces that proactive email alerts will be distributed to verified and active business owners. These alerts will allow for the review of significant changes before publication. This is an important development; previously, business owners often learned about these changes afterward.
This feature responds to the issue of malicious or erroneous changes on Google Business Profile. In 2025, Google blocked 79 million incorrect or unverified edits. This is a significant volume that shows how broad the attack surface is.
Fake Business Profiles: A Stabilization to Watch
The situation regarding fake Google Business profiles is stable: 13 million were deleted in 2025; this figure was 12 million in 2024 and also 12 million in 2023. After peaking at 20 million in 2022, the number has significantly decreased and remained at the same level for the last three years.
This stabilization can be interpreted in two ways: either the prevention efforts made during registration are bearing fruit and deterring the creation of fake profiles, or malicious actors have shifted their efforts to other types of manipulation; this is an area where volumes continue to rise strongly, such as fake reviews.
Things Google Isn't Telling Us
The report contains a notable blind spot. Google no longer shares the number of deleted photos or videos. In 2022, the platform removed 200 million photos and 7 million videos. In 2023, only videos were mentioned (14 million). From 2024 onwards, this data has completely disappeared. Since no explanation has been provided for this absence, there is uncertainty regarding the management of fake visual content.
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