How many fake reviews are posted every day?

How fake reviews affect your everyday purchasing decisions

Most people read reviews before buying something online. Studies consistently find that 93% of consumers say online reviews influence their purchase decisions, and nearly 70% trust them as much as a personal recommendation. That trust has been systematically exploited.

Fakespot and Mozilla's analysis of Amazon product pages found that approximately 31% of reviewed products had ratings that were significantly inflated by fake reviews. That means when you filter for "4 stars and above," a substantial portion of what you see has been artificially elevated. You are paying real money based on fabricated social proof.

The industries worst affected are supplements, electronics accessories, beauty products, and budget clothing - exactly the categories where consumers most rely on reviews because they cannot inspect the product before buying. Knowing this, the practical advice is uncomfortable but accurate: if a product has 10,000 five-star reviews and no critical ones, be suspicious. Absence of negative feedback is itself a red flag.

The scale: nearly half a million fake reviews posted today alone

Platform crackdowns and regulatory responses: a timeline

1. 2014Amazon bans incentivised reviews for the first time following FTC warnings
2. 2016Amazon sues over 1,000 individuals for allegedly posting fake reviews for payment
3. 2019FTC begins formal rulemaking; Yelp, Trustpilot, Google all report massive fake review removal campaigns
4. 2024FTC issues formal final rule banning fake consumer reviews, first explicit regulatory prohibition
5. 2025Google blocks or removes 292M policy-violating Maps reviews, up 21% year-on-year, per its 2025 Trust & Safety Report

Fake review volume: from a niche problem to a systemic one

Fake review volumes grew steadily through the 2010s and accelerated sharply from 2022, as AI language models made it trivial to generate convincing product reviews at industrial scale with minimal effort.

Fake reviews vs. fake news: two parallel crises of fabricated content

Fabricated content shapes both what people buy and what people believe. Fake reviews distort purchasing decisions; fake news distorts political and social views. Both are accelerating with AI.

Fake reviews: how the $152 billion opinion economy is being manipulated

Detection research: how platforms and academics fight fake reviews

In perspective

How the number is calculated

Google blocked or removed 292 million policy-violating Maps reviews in 2025, up 21% year-on-year (Google 2025 Trust & Safety Report), while also publishing over 1 billion legitimate reviews. Amazon blocked or removed 275 million fake reviews in 2024 (Amazon Transparency Report 2025), the latest figure Amazon has published. Trustpilot: 4.5M removed (7% of platform) in 2024. TripAdvisor: 2.7M in 2024. Combined from four platforms: ~574M detected/removed per year. 574,200,000 ÷ 8,760 hr ≈ 65,500/hr; ÷ 3,600 ≈ 18.2/sec. These are confirmed detected/removed reviews used as a proxy for creation volume. Actual fake reviews posted (including undetected) is higher: Capital One Shopping 2025 estimates platforms remove an average of 6.9% of reviews as suspicious, implying undetected fakes dwarf confirmed removals.

Sources: see below. Full methodology: methodology page.

Frequently asked questions

How many fake reviews are posted per day?

Estimates vary widely. Amazon reported removing 170+ million fake reviews in 2023 alone, implying approximately 465,000 per day on one platform. Including other platforms (Google, Yelp, Trustpilot, etc.), the global daily total is estimated in the millions.

What percentage of reviews are fake?

Studies and platform reports suggest 15-30% of reviews on major e-commerce and service platforms may be inauthentic. A 2023 Fakespot analysis found that 31% of Amazon reviews were unreliable. ReviewMeta estimated similar rates.

What is the economic impact of fake reviews?

The FTC estimates fake reviews influence over $152 billion in annual US consumer spending. Globally, the figure is much higher. Businesses pay millions for fake review campaigns; competitors suffer unfair disadvantage.