New Google Play Spam Filters Target Fake Reviews and Paid Installs
As long as you can make money in apps, there will be companies trying to inflate the app’s rating by falsifying statistics. Google is now targeting developers trying to artificially raise their app in the Play Store rankings.
According to a post on Google’s Android Developers blog, there are new spam filters in the Play Store that will target apps that try to look their best by faking their stats. If Google thinks a developer paid someone to install their app, or they flood their profile with fake or motivated reviews, they’ll be demoted. If they keep doing this, they may end up getting their apps. The Shady developers have tried to automate the process of getting a lot of positive reviews (for example, using Amazon Mechanical Turk to outsource installs and reviews), but this new filter system should help make those efforts a little more useless.
Maintaining Trust in the Play Store: Fighting Fraud and Spam Installations | Android Developers Blog