The State of Fake Online Reviews Statistics & Trends [2023]

Let’s begin by taking a look at the latest fake online reviews statistics.

Fake Online Reviews Statistics: Key Numbers

30% of online customer reviews are deemed fake.
93% of consumers say online reviews impact their purchasing decisions.
Fake online reviews cost $152 billion a year.
54% of consumers would not buy a product if they suspected it had fake reviews.
82% of consumers have read a fake review in the last year.
A bogus review would prompt 28% of respondents to distrust other reviews and 26% to distrust the brand.
Fake reviews can provide 20X payoff, as reported by the Federal Trade Commission.
Businesses pay around $.25 to $100 to get reviews on their products.
85% of consumers believed the reviews they read were “sometimes or often fake”.
Customers spend up to 12% more due to fake reviews, which cost $0.12 per dollar.

Amazon Fake Reviews Statistics

42% Amazon review may be fake, independent monitor says.[9]
More than 200 million suspected spam Amazon reviews have been taken down before they were ever seen by a customer.[10]
64%(Supplements), 63%(beauty), 61%(Electronics), 59%(Sneakers) reviews have been deemed “fake.

Google Fake Review Statistics

Google has “blocked or removed” 56 million fake reviews that are policy violating.
Google Removed 7 Million Fake Business Profiles In 2021.
About 20% of reviews are fake.

Reviews on the internet have become a critical entity and play a major role in influencing buying decisions. Therefore, as a business owner, gaining as many positive reviews as business can generate is one of business primary objectives.

And that’s where the fake reviews concepts arise.

A fake review is a type of persuasion that does not have the real intentions to buy or use the product or service for its actual needs but it has been motivated by the attempt to get as many ratings and reviews as possible on products and services.

Let’s look at some fake review statistics and the impact that it has on the consumer and business.

How To Spot A Fake Review

Be skeptical of top reviews.

Look for writing that is full of superlatives, as well as passages that are too long and detailed—these are giveaways to a fake review. Also, look for writing that’s too short and vague. Poorly written English is another clue that the review may not be authentic; in addition to the content itself, look closely at the writing style and sentence structure to see if it sounds genuine.

Lack of specifics

If you look at the details, you can often tell if a review is fake. For example, a real review will likely include product model numbers or specific staff members’ names. Similarly, a real rave will include specifics about what made the product or service great and not just buzzwords like “amazing” or “fantastic.” An actual one-star would dig into what they didn’t like—maybe it was that the camera broke within two weeks of purchase and had to be sent in for repair twice within six months of owning it. Or maybe they didn’t like how long the line was at 4:00 p.m. on July 30th. A review with this level of detail will give you a better idea of what might happen when you use that product or service than a simple “great!” without any context for how or why it’s great.

Outlandish claims

While product reviews are an important part of how consumers make purchasing decisions, it’s a bit ironic that fraudsters use them to try and maximize their own profits. The thing is, there are some good fake reviews out there. If you can spot them from the outside, it will help you identify genuine ones.

No photos included

One of the most common features on a review site is photos. Many people find that they help when deciding whether to buy a particular product or service. If you see a review with no images, it could be fake.

Reviews that read like sales paragraphs

Reviews that read like sales paragraphs are the most common type of fake review, and they’re pretty easy to spot. Top writers are able to write a lot of words without actually saying anything. They do this by writing about features and benefits, rather than an experience with the product or service. While there’s nothing wrong with reviews that talk about what something does or how it works, you should be suspicious if that’s all they talk about.

Quality reviews are written more like stories—they have a beginning (what was your problem?), middle (what did you try to fix?), and end (how did this product solve your problems?). Good writers will show the reader what happened when they used the item, rather than just telling them how great it is.

Fake reviewers also tend to use buzzwords in their paragraphs—words like “amazing,” “awesome,” and “mind-blowing.” These words don’t add anything meaningful to a sentence. Instead, they make the review seem less authentic and trustworthy. Real reviews use normal language for normal people.

Look for lots of five-star ratings.

If you see a string of 5 stars, then a few bad reviews, then a string of 5 stars again, that’s a red flag. “It can be so easy to look at an aggregate rating and think it looks good,” says O’Connor. But if you see weird patterns in the review list—like spikes or dips in the star rating—it means someone could be gaming the system by getting their friends to leave fives or buying fake reviews from sites like Fiverr. (And seriously, don’t do that.)

Unhelpful reviews can be a red flag.

You’re not out of luck, however. There are a few telltale signs that can help you differentiate real reviews from fake ones. One of the first, and most obvious, signs is that a helpful review will provide specific details about the product or service in question. “It was great” or “I liked it” are vague statements that don’t really give you enough information to be useful. Ideally, you should know what the reviewer liked and didn’t like about the product, why they felt it was great or didn’t care for it, who could benefit from using it (or who might want to steer clear), and so on. All of these factors can help you decide whether this is something you want to attempt for yourself.

A business with no complaints is a problem.

A company is bound to get a few bad reviews. If all you see are positive ones—if there are no complaints about late delivery, rude customer service reps or poor quality products, for instance—then it’s time to put on your detective hat. The business may have been deleting negative reviews.

If you’re really suspicious, try posting a fake review yourself and see if it shows up.

Bad spelling and grammar

Bad spelling and grammar are usually a dead giveaway for a fake review. Check to see if words are misspelled. Are there any missing words from the sentence? Is punctuation used incorrectly? Are capital letters and commas being misused, or apostrophes appearing where they shouldn’t be? If there is more than one error in the review, it’s likely that the reviewer doesn’t know what he/she is talking about and didn’t put much thought into what was written.

Their name sounds phony or generic—think “Mary Smith” or “John Doe.”

While leaving reviews, most people use a variant of their real name, but sometimes a review can be fudged by someone who has nothing to do with the product at all. If a review is suspicious, you might want to see if there are other reviews left by the same person. If they all sound very similar or generic—like they came directly from an advertisement—that’s another clue that it could be fake. If, on the other hand, there are several reviews and they’re all favorable with no mention of any problems or negative features of the product, it’s likely that the person behind them is attempting to hide something terrible about it.