Some Law Firms who have purchased fake positive 5 star reviews for their Google Business Page (GBP) will see a notice on their listing which reads “Suspected fake reviews were recently removed from this place”.
Clicking on “details” will show a notice which says “Posting Reviews is turned off for this place”.
The change is coming to all businesses worldwide in 2025, including law firms. Google has been testing this in the UK since February 2025 and it has began rolling out in the US in June 2025.
Below is what the message looks like:
How is Google Finding Fake Reviews?
On April 7, 2025, Google announced they’re using AI, Gemini specifically, to find “abuse patterns”. They could be looking at profiles which leave reviews to businesses far away from their area, VPN IP addresses commonly used to abuse reviews, and/or profiles with significant numbers of reviews which follow a certain pattern. To be honest, they’re pretty easy to detect – Yelp has had this feature for many years and even publishes a naughty list of businesses with suspicious review activity.
In Google’s announcement, they said “AI helps us better detect this kind of dishonest behavior. For example, we can now revisit reviews more frequently to identify new abuse patterns even months after they were originally posted.”
Of course, purchasing fake reviews is against Google Maps user-generated content policy.
The notices are called “consumer alerts” and you can read more about them here.
Obtain Real Reviews!
Review recency is a Google Local Pack ranking factor. For tips on gaining more Google reviews, check out our podcast: How To Get More Reviews for Your Law Firm.
If you see a Law Firm with this notification, please contact us! We’d love to see an example.
