Online review statistics for 2026
30 figures about online reviews, in 5 groups, every one of them traced to a primary page. No figure is here because a blog quoted it. Where a number is easy to overstate, the row says how.
By James Tumbucon. Last checked
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What are the key online review statistics for 2026?
Google says it blocked or removed 292 million policy-violating reviews in 2025, against more than a billion published. Trustpilot says it removed 4.5 million reviews as fake in 2024, 7.4% of the 61 million written. Yelp filtered nearly 500,000 reviews as suspected AI writing.
What had to be true for a figure to appear
Three rules, applied to every number. They rule out most of the review statistics in circulation, which is the point.
1
It comes from a primary page: the platform’s own report, a regulator, or a named study that publishes its sample and its method. A blog citing a blog is not a source.
2
It is dated. The row says the period the figure describes, and the source list says the day we last read the page it came from.
3
It carries its limits. If a figure is a raw count with no denominator, or comes from a party with an interest in the answer, the row says so.
Trustpilot
Trustpilot publishes a Trust Report each year. These are its own figures for 2024, in the 2025 report. There is no 2026 report yet.
| Figure | What it measures | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61 million | reviews were written on Trustpilot in 2024. | 2024 | Trustpilot |
| 4.5 million | reviews were removed as fake in 2024, which Trustpilot puts at 7.4% of those written. | 2024 | Trustpilot |
| 90% | of the fake reviews Trustpilot removed were caught by its automated systems rather than by a person. | 2024 | Trustpilot |
| 601,000 | reviews were flagged by businesses in 2024, against 92,000 flagged by consumers.The figure is in the chart image itself. Trustpilot's own alt text on that chart misstates it as 61 thousand, so quote the chart, not the alt text. | 2024 | Trustpilot |
| 9,000 | Consumer Warnings were active on Trustpilot business profiles. | 2024 | Trustpilot |
| 19,000 | warnings and 5,000 cease-and-desist letters were issued to businesses over review misuse. | 2024 | Trustpilot |
| 1,490% | was the growth in click-throughs to Trustpilot from AI search in 2025, in Trustpilot's own annual report. | 2025 | Trustpilot Group plc |
| 5th | most cited domain globally on ChatGPT in January 2026, according to Promptwatch, as reported in Trustpilot's annual report.Trustpilot is reporting a third party's measurement, Promptwatch, not measuring it itself. | January 2026 | Trustpilot Group plc |
| 49 billion | search impressions a year, after a 45% year-on-year rise Trustpilot attributes partly to Google AI Overviews. | 2025 | Trustpilot Group plc |
Google has no annual trust report. It published its 2025 volumes once, in a blog post, and publishes thresholds and process on its help pages. There is still no removal rate, because a count without a denominator is not a rate.
| Figure | What it measures | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 292 million | policy-violating reviews were blocked or removed from Google Maps in 2025, against more than 1 billion reviews published.Google's words are policy-violating, not fake, and the two are not the same. The figures are in a blog post rather than a standing report, so there may be no 2026 edition. | 2025 | The Keyword, Google |
| 13 million | fake Business Profiles were removed from Google Maps. | 2025 | The Keyword, Google |
| 782,000 | accounts were given posting restrictions, and 79 million inaccurate or unverified profile edits were blocked. | 2025 | The Keyword, Google |
| 3.5 stars | is the minimum rating Google requires before it will show a store rating on a text ad. | checked 2026-09-21 | Google Ads Help |
| 24 months | is how far back Google looks for the reviews behind a store rating on ads. | checked 2026-09-21 | Google Ads Help |
| up to 2 weeks | is how long Google says a new or edited review can take to change the rating shown on a profile. | checked 2026-09-21 | Google Business Profile Help |
| several days | is all Google publishes about how long it takes to assess a reported review.Google publishes no service level, no appeal turnaround and no removal rate. | checked 2026-09-21 | Google Business Profile Help |
| 1 appeal | is all a business gets when Google keeps a reported review, and up to 10 reviews can be included in it. | checked 2026-09-21 | Google Business Profile Help |
| 0 thresholds | are published for the review spike that triggers a posting pause on a profile, or for how long such a pause lasts.Google says it may pause posting and tell the owner. It publishes no trigger, no duration and no way to ask for one. | checked 2026-09-22 | Google Maps User Generated Content Policy |
Yelp
Yelp publishes an annual Trust and Safety report, and it is the most detailed of the three. Every figure in it is a count. None of them has a denominator, so none is a rate.
| Figure | What it measures | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| nearly 500,000 | reviews were filtered as suspected AI-generated content.Yelp publishes no method for how it decides a review looks AI-generated, and no total to measure it against. | 2025, global | Yelp Trust & Safety |
| 1,450 | Media Attention Alerts were placed on Yelp pages, and 75% of them followed a social media post about a business going viral. | 2025, United States only | Yelp Trust & Safety |
| 63,100 | reviews were removed from the pages that carried those Media Attention Alerts. | 2025, United States only | Yelp Trust & Safety |
| 1.3 million | user accounts were closed for breaking Yelp's terms, which Yelp puts at 138% more than in 2024. | 2025 | Yelp Trust & Safety |
| 1,020 reports | went to other platforms about groups trading or paying for reviews, and Yelp says 60% of them led to the content being removed. | 2025 | Yelp Trust & Safety |
Consumers
Two named studies, both with a published method. Neither is about direct-to-consumer health brands specifically, and both are quoted as what they measured.
| Figure | What it measures | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4.0 to 4.7 | is the star range where purchase likelihood peaked, in a study of product ratings on retail sites.Product ratings on retail sites, not a review platform profile. | Spiegel Research Center, Northwestern | Spiegel Research Center, Northwestern University |
| 270% | was the lift in purchase likelihood from the first five reviews on a product, against none. | Spiegel Research Center, Northwestern | Spiegel Research Center, Northwestern University |
| 84% | of patients said they check online reviews before choosing a new healthcare provider.Run by rater8, which sells review software to medical practices, so it has an interest in the finding. | December 2024 survey of 1,008 US adults | rater8 |
| 61% | of patients said they put online reviews ahead of referrals from friends and family.Same survey, same interest. About choosing a provider, not about buying from a DTC brand. | December 2024 survey of 1,008 US adults | rater8 |
Regulation
United States federal rules, from the regulator's own pages.
| Figure | What it measures | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21 October 2024 | is when the FTC's Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials took effect. | in force | Electronic Code of Federal Regulations |
| $53,088 | is the maximum civil penalty per violation under the FTC's rule. | 2025 amount, unchanged for 2026 | Federal Trade Commission |
| $150,000 | was the penalty in the FTC's case against a telehealth company that suppressed negative Trustpilot reviews and offered gift cards for their removal. | final order, 3 December 2025 | Federal Trade Commission |
Download the table
The same rows as a CSV, with the publisher, the URL and the last verified date on every line. Built from the same file the page renders, so the two cannot disagree.
Online review statistics, for 2026, with the working shown. Every figure below comes from a primary page: the platform's own report, a regulator, or a named study that publishes its sample. Each row gives the number, what it measures, the period it covers, the source and, where a reader could overstate it, a caveat.
There are 30 figures in five groups: Trustpilot, Google, Yelp, buyers and regulation. The whole table downloads as a CSV.
What this page will not tell you
It will not tell you the share of reviews online that are fake. Trustpilot is the only platform here that publishes a percentage, and it is a percentage of its own reviews. Google and Yelp publish counts with nothing to divide them by.
It will not give you a figure for what a star is worth in revenue. Those numbers are everywhere, and every one we chased came back to a blog post rather than a study.
What we dropped, and why
Most of the review statistics you meet online fail rule one. The familiar ones about how many buyers read reviews, or how much a star is worth, come from software vendors selling review tools, and they are quoted at second or third hand.
We dropped a widely quoted figure about buyers being more likely to purchase from a business with good reviews, because the page quoting it was a vendor citing a vendor survey from 2020 with no method shown. We dropped two figures about search behaviour and social media for the same reason.
We also wanted a total review count for Yelp, from its investor filings. That site refuses scripted requests, so we could not read it. It is left out rather than guessed at.
One thing worth saying about the Trustpilot row: the 601,000 figure for reviews flagged by businesses is in the chart image on Trustpilot’s own report. The alt text on that chart says 61 thousand, which does not match the chart. Quote the chart.
Cite this page
Quote any figure here, and name the platform or study it came from rather than us. If you want to show the working, link to this page as well. Suggested citation:
Remove One Star. (2026). Online Review Statistics (2026): figures on reviews, with a primary source for each. https://www.removeonestar.com/research/online-review-statistics-2026
Corrections are welcome at team@removeonestar.com. If you are writing about health brands specifically, our DTC health Trustpilot report reads 127 US brand profiles, and the press page has a two-sentence summary and the charts.
Questions about these statistics
Yes. Quote the figure, name the original source, and link to this page if you want the working. Every row here carries the publisher, the URL and the date we last checked it, so you can go straight to the primary page. The suggested wording is in the citation block.
Nobody can say, and any figure claiming to know is a guess. What is published is what each platform removed. Trustpilot says it took down 4.5 million reviews as fake in 2024. Google says it blocked or removed 292 million policy-violating reviews in 2025. Neither gives the total those came out of.
Because a rate needs a denominator and Google publishes none. It says it blocked or removed 292 million policy-violating reviews and published more than a billion, which are two counts, not a share of what was submitted. Trustpilot is the only platform here that publishes the percentage itself.
The figures are checked whenever a source publishes an update, and the Last verified date on each source moves with it. Trustpilot's Trust Report is annual, so the 2024 figures stand until the next one lands. There is no 2026 Trust Report yet.
Mostly no, and the page says so on each row. Two of them come from a survey about choosing a healthcare provider. For figures on direct-to-consumer health brands specifically, our DTC health Trustpilot report reads 127 US brand profiles.
Any figure we could not trace to a primary page. That ruled out most of the review statistics in circulation, because they are quoted from a blog that quotes another blog. It also ruled out survey results whose sample size and method were not published.
Primary sources used on this page
- Trust Report 2025. TrustpilotLast verified
- Annual Report 2025. Trustpilot Group plcLast verified
- New ways we're protecting businesses on Maps. The Keyword, GoogleLast verified
- About store ratings. Google Ads HelpLast verified
- Understand review scores for local places & businesses. Google Business Profile HelpLast verified
- Report inappropriate reviews on your Business Profile. Google Business Profile HelpLast verified
- Posting Restrictions. Google Maps User Generated Content PolicyLast verified
- Yelp Trust & Safety Report 2025. Yelp Trust & SafetyLast verified
- How Online Reviews Influence Sales. Spiegel Research Center, Northwestern UniversityLast verified
- How Patients Choose Their Doctors: The Role of Online Reviews (2025 report). rater8Last verified
- 16 CFR Part 465: Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials. Electronic Code of Federal RegulationsLast verified
- FTC Publishes Inflation-Adjusted Civil Penalty Amounts for 2025. Federal Trade CommissionLast verified
- FTC Approves Final Order against Telehealth Provider NextMed (December 3, 2025). Federal Trade CommissionLast verified
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