Keeping it real: Improving reviews and ratings in Google Play

Posted by Andrew Ahn, Product Manager and Buddhika Kottahachchi, Product Manager

The Play Store contains the largest catalog of apps in the world. As our users make decisions about the apps they'd like to install, we want to ensure Play provides a trustworthy experience.

Recently, we announced our improvements in fighting fraudulent and spam app installs. In continuing our efforts to combat spammy behavior, we've also improved the ways we identify and remove fake reviews and ratings. With this enhanced capability we are now able to identify and remove more fake reviews and ratings with greater accuracy.

In the vast majority of cases, no action is needed. If you are working with someone else to promote your app (e.g., third-party marketing agencies), we advise you to check-in and ensure that their promotion techniques use legitimate practices, and adhere to the Google Play Developer Policy. The basic rule of thumb for reviews and ratings is that they should come from genuine users, and developers should not attempt to manipulate them in any form (e.g., fake, paid, incentivized).

We will continue making such enhancements to our systems that will further help protect the integrity of Google Play, our developer community, and ultimately our end users.