Dealing with Coordinated 1-Star Review Attacks – Which Reporting Option Works?

Google Maps tips & tricks
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Hi everyone,

We manage several business pages on Google Maps and recently experienced what we believe to be a wave of coordinated 1-star reviews — possibly triggered by viral social content or competitive disruption.

Many of the reviews appear to come from users with no history, vague or unrelated commentary, and similar timestamps. While we can flag them, we’ve noticed there’s no specific option for “coordinated manipulation” or “competitor attack.”

In your experience, which report option tends to be the most effective in these cases — Spam or Off-topic?

Also, does anyone know how Google evaluates these reports? Are there any best practices to ensure reports are taken seriously (e.g., flagging from multiple accounts, contacting business support)?

Appreciate any insights — we want to protect the integrity of real reviews without misusing the reporting tool.

Thanks in advance!

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Reporting may work for short term, but since it looks like you’re experiencing coordinated attack, it might not be very effective.

Since it looks like you’re the manager of business pages, it might be worth to bring this up in the Google Business Profile Help Community. They might have more insight on what to do in these kind of cases

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I agree with @iyudhi 's suggestion to bring this case to Google Business Profile Help Community

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