How to report fake competitor listings and bought reviews on Google Maps.

What Google counts as fake or misleading

Google's guidelines for representing a business on Maps are the yardstick, and the reports that work quote them. The rules most fake listings break:

• The name must be the business's real-world name, as on its sign, stationery and invoices. Google does not allow service descriptions, locations, taglines, phone numbers or opening hours in the name, so "Emergency Locksmith Leeds 24 Hour" breaks it unless the firm really trades under that name everywhere.
• A business needs a location that customers visit during its stated hours, or it must travel to its customers. Virtual offices are not eligible, and post boxes or mailboxes at remote locations are not acceptable addresses.
• A business that travels to customers should hide its address and set a service area, which Google says should generally stay within about two hours' drive of its base.
• A co-working space counts only with clear signage, customers received during business hours and staff present at those times.
• One profile per business, and one per real location. A firm with one van and twelve listings across the county breaks this.
• The phone number should be the location's own, under the business's control, not a central call centre line or a number that redirects somewhere else.

Listings that break these rules are what the reporting routes below are for. A listing that is simply better than yours at getting calls is not.

Check that it really is fake

Some listings look odd and are genuine: a plumber who works from home and hides the address, a firm with a second branch you did not know about. Before you report, check:

• Street View of the address. A house with no sign is normal for a service-area business that hides its address. A shown address that turns out to be an empty plot, a mailbox shop or a virtual office is not.
• The phone number. Search for it: if the same number appears on several listings under different names, that is a pattern worth reporting.
• The website. Does it name the same business at the same address, or is it a page of town names with one phone number?
• The name on the van or the invoice, if you have ever seen one.
• The reviews. Dozens in a few weeks, from accounts that review the same handful of businesses in different cities.

Write down what you find as you go. Those notes become the explanation the form asks for.

Clean up your own listing first

Reporting a competitor invites a look at your own profile, and every rule above applies to you as well. Before you send anything:

• Make the profile name match your sign exactly, with no service or town added.
• Hide your address if customers do not visit you, and list only the areas you really cover.
• Deal with any second profile for the same business, after checking whether it has reviews.
• Use a phone number the business answers itself.

Google Business Profile for a business without a storefront walks through the hidden-address setup for trades that travel. A clean profile also gives a rival's report against you nothing to work with.

One listing: suggest an edit

For a single listing, the quickest route is Google Maps itself. Open the listing, choose Suggest an edit, and pick what is wrong:

• For a stuffed name, edit it to the real name if you know it, such as the name on the firm's website or invoices.
• For a business that is not at the address shown, choose Place closed or not here, then Doesn't exist here.
• For a second copy of a business that is already listed, choose Duplicate of another place.
• For a listing set up to mislead people, choose Offensive, harmful or misleading.

Google reviews every edit, so changes can take a while to show, and some edit options exist only in some countries. On a phone you can see the list of edits you have made, and your suggested edit is visible only to you until Google accepts it.

Use this route for one or two listings. For more, the form below lets you send them together.

A pattern: the Business Redressal Complaint Form

Google's Business Redressal Complaint Form is for reporting misleading information or fraudulent activity on Maps tied to a business's name, phone number or website. It is the route for patterns: one phone number behind ten listings, a network of locksmiths at made-up addresses, a rival that renames its listing every month. The form asks for:

• Your full name, your email address and the name of the business affected. Google asks for your own name even when you report for someone else.
• Which part of the listing is the problem: the title, the address, the phone number, the website, or that the business does not exist.
• The public Maps link for each listing, which must start with https://www.google.com/maps. You can add links one at a time or upload a spreadsheet, and Google suggests sending 10 to 100 at a time for faster processing.
• An explanation of why each one is misleading, quoting the exact name, number or address shown.
• Any files you want to attach, such as your spreadsheet or screenshots.

The form says not to use it for an ordinary mistake in a name, number or website. Those go through Suggest an edit. After you submit, you get a case ID, and Google asks you to verify your email address so the complaint is not delayed.

Evidence Google can act on

A complaint that says "these are all fake" gives nobody anything to check. One that lists what you found, listing by listing, does. A spreadsheet like this works for the form and for any follow-up:

• The Maps link, and the name exactly as shown.
• The address shown, and what Street View shows there, with the image date.
• The phone number, and every other listing that uses it.
• The website, and whether it names a different business or the same one.
• Which guideline it breaks, in Google's terms: service and location words in the name, an ineligible address, a duplicate.
• The date you checked, and the screenshot file for that row.

Keep the tone flat. Write "The address is a mail forwarding shop; Street View from March shows its sign", not "obvious scammers". Facts that can be checked are what the form asks for.

One search, followed through

A garage door firm in Leeds searches "garage door repair Leeds" on a phone and finds three listings above it that it has never heard of. Here is the check, start to finish:

• Listing one is called "Garage Door Repair Leeds Fast". Its address on Street View is a mailbox shop, and its phone number appears on two more listings, under other names, in Bradford and Wakefield.
• Listing two has an ordinary name, but its website is a page of forty town names with the same phone number.
• Listing three is a real firm from the next town, with its workshop shown on Street View. It is genuine, so it goes on no list.
• The owner fills four rows of the spreadsheet: listings one and two, plus the two others sharing the number, each with the Maps link, the Street View finding and the guideline it breaks.
• Because one number links all four, he sends them together through the redressal form, quoting the names and the shared number in the explanation, with the spreadsheet attached.

At the end of the month he checks again and notes what is still there. The lesson is in the third listing: much of the work is ruling out the ones that are only competition.

Bought reviews on a competitor's listing

Fake reviews on someone else's profile can be reported too: reviews that break Google's policy can be reported for removal, using the report option on the review. The reasons that fit bought reviews are fake engagement and conflict of interest, such as staff reviewing their own employer.

Signs worth noting: dozens of five-star reviews in a few days after months of nothing, reviewers who praise the same few businesses in cities far apart, and reviews that repeat the same phrases. Report each one with the most accurate reason, and add the pattern to your redressal spreadsheet if the listing itself is also fake. Check the listing again later to see whether they are still there.

For fake reviews on your own profile, the route is different: see how to remove fake Google reviews.

What happens after you report

Less than you would like. The redressal form says Google cannot promise that any action will be taken, and that you will not be updated on the complaint's status. Suggested edits may be accepted, rejected or left pending, and you only see your own list of edits. Plan for that:

• Check each listing again at the end of the month, and note what changed.
• If a listing is still there and nothing has changed, send a fresh complaint with anything new you found, rather than the same text again.
• If you are stuck, Google's own help pages point owners to the Business Profile Help Community and to support.
• Expect some listings to return under new names. Look for the phone numbers and websites already in your spreadsheet.

Why fighting fire with fire backfires

When the fakes rank above you, it is tempting to copy them: add the town and the service to your own name, open a second listing at a friend's address, buy a batch of reviews. Each of these breaks the rules you are reporting others for, and each puts more at risk than the calls it might win:

• Google's guidelines say unnecessary words in a business name could get the profile suspended, and a rival can report your listing as easily as you report theirs.
• A second listing at an address where you do not work is an ineligible location, and Google hides duplicates from Search and Maps anyway.
• Bought reviews are fake engagement. Google removes them and can restrict the profile: no new reviews for a set period, existing reviews unpublished for a set period, and a warning to customers that fake reviews were removed.
• In the US, buying fake reviews also breaks the FTC's rule on consumer reviews and testimonials.

A suspended profile takes the calls you already had with it. The review request rules set out what you can do instead.

Win the calls the fakes are after

Fake listings exist because people search in a hurry and ring the first number. You beat them on what they cannot fake for long:

• Answer the phone. Someone locked out at 11pm rings the next listing if nobody picks up. Missed-call text-back, on our prices page, texts every caller you could not answer.
• Reply to web enquiries the same evening, with each one routed to whoever is on call. Enquiry follow-up chases the ones nobody answered.
• Show real photos: your van, your team, your work.
• Ask every customer for a Google review after the job, so your reviews describe real jobs on real streets.
• Have a website with a page for each service and the areas you really cover, which a page of town names with one phone number cannot match. Our websites are built that way.
• Keep your hours, holiday hours and services current on the profile.

If you run a home services business, Google's Local Services Ads put every advertiser through screening and verification first. Local Services Ads or Google Ads compares the two.

Make it a monthly check

Removed listings can come back under new names. Once a month, search your main service and town on Google Maps from a phone, the way a customer would, and look at the first screen of results:

• Any new listing with a keyword name, or an address that is a mailbox?
• Any listing you reported that is still there?
• Any listing using a phone number already in your spreadsheet?

A short check each month keeps the spreadsheet current, and a current spreadsheet makes the next complaint quick to send.