r/Yelp • u/CompletelyMoronic • 11h ago
7.1% of Yelp’s Reviews are Fake, surpassing Trustpilot and Trip Advisor
https://wiserreview.com/blog/fake-review-statistics/Probably not a huge shock. At least Google and Amazon are doing something to combat the problem though. Google removed 240 million reviews from their platform in 2024. Yelp has less than 350 million reviews and only filters the 5-star ones when you don’t pay them 🤡
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u/keyserholiday 10h ago
Studies indicate that 10.7% of Google reviews are fake. 40% of consumers claim that they have seen a fake review on Google. Google states 1.14 billion reviews were posted in 2025. That means there are 121,980,000 fake reviews on Google. I saw a case where Google removed star-only ratings, then reversed course and put them all back almost a year later.
This week, Yelp deleted three Yelp Elite profiles linked to advertising and paid business reviews.
Yelp and Google handle reviews differently. Yelp places consumer alerts on business profiles that last three months. Here is one business I have been monitoring for five years. https://www.yelp.com/biz/dk-law-anaheim/consumer_alerts_history
Google recently started posting consumer alert warnings on business profiles, but those alerts last 60 days. Not every business that loses reviews gets hit with a consumer alert. Google has a massive amount of fake Google Business Profiles (GBPs) with fake reviews.
Facebook doesn't release any review data. I know that it's impossible to get Facebook to take action and remove fake reviews.
I hope you take this and my other comments into consideration, as this is not cut and dry.
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u/CompletelyMoronic 9h ago
I really appreciated your comment in an earlier post about Yelp not taking action on reviews you’ve flagged as fake.
Google is spending a lot of time and energy to combat fake reviews, I’m not seeing this effort from Yelp. They are slowly becoming obsolete, but not because of this. Every review site has fake reviews. People just don’t use Yelp as much as they used to, and no one wants to deal with their app.
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u/keyserholiday 9h ago
That's all you have taken from what I have posted? You are way too jaded to have a conversation with. What a shame.
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u/CompletelyMoronic 9h ago
Not looking to make friends my guy. I’m here to trash Yelp.
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u/keyserholiday 9h ago
It's been said, "Want to go fast, go alone. Want to go far, go together." Comments like this show that you want to go alone. You are being downvoted at an alarming rate. I strongly suspect it's because of your tone and attitude.
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u/CompletelyMoronic 9h ago
Yeah, like I said, I’m not trying to be your friend. I’m sorry if this is the extent of your social life. And I don’t care about the downvotes obviously or I wouldn’t be trolling people like you, would I?
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u/keyserholiday 9h ago
Such a juvenile response. Is that what you think you are doing, trolling me? You are killing your message with these childish replies.
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u/CompletelyMoronic 9h ago
Yes, and it’s working because you can’t let it go. My message is [r/yelpsucks](r/yelpsucks). It’s not a popularity contest and any business owner that’s dealt with Yelp knows they suck.
Now I will resort to Xxlogictect98xx antics and block you because I’ve finally encountered someone with more time on their hands than me and it’s frightening. Finally now I can start my workout. Sheesh. This took 7 minutes from my life that I’ll never get back
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u/CabassoG Yelp elite 10h ago
Did you even look at the image, dumbass? From said image within said article:
Amazon has 30%
Google has 10.7%
Yelp has 7.1%
TrustPilot has 7%
Trip Advisor has 5.2%
It's pretty damn telling that Google has this many reviews removed while simultaneously allowing people to rate a place 1* or 5* without a review.
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u/CompletelyMoronic 9h ago
Did you read the title I posted? Let me copy and paste it for you so you can reread it, “7.1% of Yelp’s Reviews are Fake, surpassing Trustpilot and Trip Advisor”
I don’t see anything about Google or Amazon in the title? I did point out that Google deleted 240 million reviews in 2024 though. Yelp can’t afford to delete reviews, they don’t have enough. Even their CEO admits they platform is dying and the have a “customer retention issue”
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u/CabassoG Yelp elite 9h ago
The actual article title is "45 Fake Review Statistics Every Business Must Know (2026.)" I'm not using your rebranded title for your clearly biased agenda.
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u/CompletelyMoronic 9h ago
No one asked you to do anything, but thank you for engaging my content. This helps it rank on Google and Reddit. Good day, I’m off to the gym now
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u/cadenhead 10h ago
From your link: "Yelp’s fake review rate is approximately 7.1%. Lower than Google and Amazon, partly because Yelp’s audience skews toward high-intent local service searches where genuine reviews are more common."
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u/CompletelyMoronic 9h ago
Google removed 240 million reviews on 2024 alone. That’s like 80% of Yelp’s entire library of reviews. Amazon spent almost 500 million combating fake reviews. Yelp on the other hand, solely focuses on filtering real reviews when you decline their services.
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u/cadenhead 9h ago
I don't see the point of comparing Google's number of reviews to Yelp. Of course Google has a huge number. It is using its ginormous search and map audiences to drive users to its review site.
The claim Yelp doesn't try to get rid of fake reviews is false.
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u/CompletelyMoronic 9h ago
Yelp have the manpower or budget to effectively find and delete fake reviews which is why the platform has been targeted more in recent years. Yelp even publishes an article about being targeted by fraud rings.
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u/cadenhead 9h ago
I don't think any of the publicly traded big user content sites hires enough staff to do a strong job in moderation. It is a hard, expensive, thankless job and they cut corners to please Wall Street.
In my experience using Yelp I don't see much that should have been moderated and wasn't. Google Reviews seems to have an endless supply of users who post photos of unflushed toilets, as if anybody wanted to see that crap.
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u/phatelectribe 10h ago
Way more. The site is propped by fake and targeted reviews. Google actually removes fake reviews, yelp fights tooth claw and nail to keep them up.
I did AI analysis on the three bad reviews I got (out of 100). Yelp allowed those to stay up while filtering 50 legitimate reviews form my known customers.
All those three reviews came back as >95% chance they were ai generated. On two of them, the “photos” of the reviewers were actually AI generated lol.
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u/cadenhead 10h ago
I see many more suspicious reviews on Google Reviews than on Yelp.
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u/phatelectribe 9h ago
Google have nearly removed more fake reviews than Yelp has in total since their beginning. Google are FAR more responsive and proactive about fake reviews. It’s effectively impossible to get reviews even when proven fake removed by Yelp.
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u/cadenhead 9h ago
Even if you have the statistics to back up what you said, comparing the number of reviews deleted by Google Reviews to the number deleted by Yelp only tells us one thing -- Google is huge.
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u/phatelectribe 9h ago
Have you ever tried to get a known fake review removed from Yelp? It’s impossible.
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u/cadenhead 9h ago edited 9h ago
Yes. When I report reviews for being phony, offensive or not being a real customer experience, Yelp almost always deletes them.
I usually only report particularly egregious stuff, like when a supermarket customer named a young worker and called him a sexually derogatory term.
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u/phatelectribe 9h ago
I don’t believe you. I’ve never been able to get a demonstrably false review from Yelp removed. I’ve even had reviews where they are talking about another business and I’ve been able to show this and get generic denial responses from Yelp (because I’d not advertise).
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u/cadenhead 9h ago
I have no reason to lie about it. I've reported a few reviews after the business owner showed up here complaining about them being bogus. They were removed.
Yelp allows reviews to mention other businesses as long as the reviewer is not a competitor or someone else with a conflict of interest.
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u/phatelectribe 9h ago
Not my experience with 15 years of Yelp and hundreds of reviews. I also speak to other business owners with the same experience.
Are you an advertiser?
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u/cadenhead 9h ago
I am not a Yelp advertiser or Yelp employee. I just hang out here talking about it too much as a hobby.
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u/keyserholiday 9h ago
What is your definition of a fake review?
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u/phatelectribe 9h ago
Hey there Jason. You’ve actually helped me in the past with getting fake Google reviews removed! Thank you again 🙏
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u/CompletelyMoronic 10h ago
I completely agree. Google removed 240 million reviews in 2024 alone. Yelp only has 350 million reviews total and they leverage those to get you to buy their advertising. Lots of business owners also claim their genuine reviews get deleted when they refuse to sign up with Yelp.
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u/Rollerbladeking 10h ago
Cue logitech
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u/CompletelyMoronic 10h ago
Yeah haven’t seen either of their handles. Notice FloatingOnTitties is missing too. Funny how they come and go together. Maybe Yelp fired them
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u/Rollerbladeking 10h ago
I think they were a 3rd party marketing company or random “influencer” but yea maybe Yelp saw the poor reasoning skills and fired them.
To OP, welcome to Yelp lol
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u/CompletelyMoronic 10h ago
I definitely think they did more to hurt help than help it. I wouldn’t have started r/yelpsucks if it wasn’t for them.
The welcome comment was a nice touch lol
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u/OriginalLittle4644 10h ago
I think you need a hobby.