Using human intelligence and machine learning, Google was able to heavily combat spam content and fake reviews on Google Play this year. The company says the effort led to removing millions of reviews and ratings being removed from the Play Store and thousands of malicious apps identified for suspicious reviews in just a week.

Fake ratings and reviews help a poorly made or malicious app in ranking higher in Play Store lists and thereby reach a wider audience. This is obviously harmful to the entire ecosystem and also ends up negatively affecting genuine developers who put in a considerable amount of work in their apps.

To improve its machine learning algorithm, a team of engineers at Google and analysts monitored and studied fake comments and suspicious activity on the Play Store. This was then followed by skilled reviewers checking the decisions made by the algorithm to ensure it was not weeding our genuine reviews and ratings.

The move is obviously a positive one from Google as this will ensure fake reviews and ratings don’t help a malicious or poorly made app from ranking high in the Play Store list and reaching a wide set of audience. It will also actively encourage developers to create better apps and pay more attention to the reviews they receive since they know it is coming from a genuine user.