Apple is cracking down on fake reviews on the App Store

Apple recently began cracking down on fake reviews in the App Store, a widespread problem that can affect both App Store rankings and Top Charts. According to research done by TechCrunch, Apple appears to have started removing false reviews earlier this year. One app, Better Fonts Free, which is described by TechCrunch as “spammy,” saw thousands of its June ratings disappear overnight. While the app has just 4,000 reviews at the current point in time, it previously had more than 20,000. Developers have no way to remove reviews, which means the fake reviews were pulled by Apple.

App developers know that having good ratings and reviews means more users will be wiling to download their app. And thanks to ratings’ influence on Apple’s ranking algorithms, it will help their app be better discovered via the App Store’s Top Charts as well. Because of this, some — okay, many — developers manipulate their apps’ positions by posting fake ratings and reviews. It’s sort of common knowledge these days, in fact. Any brief, glowing, five-star review is immediately suspect. As it turns out, it’s suspect to Apple, too. And now the company is doing something about it. For some period of time — it’s unclear exactly how long — Apple has been removing fake reviews from the App Store that have unjustly helped certain apps climb higher in the charts than they would have otherwise. There was some discussion of this on a forum back in May, when a handful of developers noticed that a good chunk of their reviews went missing. None admitted to having bought reviews, however, which is sadly a common practice now. Developers often post jobs on freelancer marketplaces asking for reviews, or buy them in bulk from shady, third-party providers.