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Spot fake reviews on Google Maps

Here's how to spot fake Google reviews with ChatGPT or Claude: pull recent reviews for local businesses and flag any that suddenly got a flood of five stars.

  1. 01

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  2. 02

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    @Firecrawl Use Alexandria to find the top 15 roofers in Austin, TX on Google Maps and flag any that suddenly got way more five-star reviews than usual.

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  3. 03

    What came back

    Claude Code (Claude Opus 5.5) sent back, word for word:

    I pulled the top 15 Austin roofers from Google Maps through Firecrawl Alexandria and checked each one's newest reviews (up to 240 per business). Six showed a jump in five-star reviews worth a look. The two strongest are Cool Roofs and Texas Choice Roofing. A spike alone doesn't prove the reviews are fake: Austin hail storms and companies asking customers for reviews both cause real bursts. These are leads to check, not findings of fraud.

    Flagged

    Roofer (Google rank)SpikeWhat stands out
    Cool Roofs – Austin (#12; 5.0 stars, 606 reviews)Dec 2025: 99 five-star reviews, against a normal month of about 6–7The strongest flag. 49 of them landed in three days (Dec 21–23, with 22 on Dec 22 alone). Many praise individual staff by name ("Naven", "Daniel", "Colt"), and one reviewer says they've known the owner for 8 years. That looks like friends or employees being asked to review. Smaller spikes in Aug 2025 (24) and Apr 2026 (30).
    Texas Choice Roofing (#9; 5.0, 215)Dec 2024: 26, against about 3 a monthAbout 12% of all its reviews came in one two-week stretch. The owner replied to none of them, but replies to 62% of its other reviews. The reviews are long and detailed and name sales reps, so this looks like an organized review push. Another smaller spike in Jul 2025 (13).
    LOA Construction & Austin Roofing (#2; 5.0, 1,003)Jul 2025: 66, against about 10 a month43 in two weeks, including 11 on Jul 24. However, 40 of the 66 include photos and many mention a hail storm and insurance claims, so a real surge after a storm is a likely explanation.
    Austin Roofing & Construction (#3; 4.8, 277)Sep 2025: 19, against about 3 a month18 within two weeks. One reads "Great roofing sub to work with!", which sounds like a subcontractor or business partner rather than a customer.
    Kidd Roofing (#15; 4.9, 871)Oct 2026: 26 in the first 20 days (still going), and Dec 2025: 33; normal is about 12The reviews keep naming the same reps (Joshua Wright, Matt, Nick). That points to reps asking customers for reviews, which is normal unless customers are being rewarded for them. Worth rechecking at the end of the month.
    Elite Roofing (#6; 4.9, 291)Jan 2024: 21; Mar 2025: 18; Jun 2025: 17; normal is about 5Mild. The Jan 2024 reviews are noticeably shorter than its usual ones. The 2025 bump lasted for months, which fits a busy season more than fake reviews.

    Minor: Bill Sprauer (Jul 2025: 11 against about 1) and Perry & Sons (Jun 2024: 10). Both are small numbers, and Bill Sprauer's reviews mention a storm, so I wouldn't worry about them.

    No meaningful spike: Austin Roofing Company (#1), Ace Roofing, Clear Choice, Austin Roofing Company & Water Damage | WDR, Austin Roofing Company & Handyman, and Transcendent. Ace and Clear Choice did trip the cutoff in one older month each (9 reviews against about 2), which is minor. WDR's spring 2026 rise from about 13 to about 40 a month was gradual over several months, not a sudden jump.

    How it worked

    • Ranking: the "top 15" are Google Maps' first 15 results for "roofers Austin TX", not a ranking by rating.
    • Spike test: for each roofer I counted five-star reviews per month and compared each month to that roofer's typical month. A month was flagged if it had at least 8 five-star reviews, at least 2.5 times the usual number, and a count that would be very unlikely by chance. I also scanned for any 14-day bursts, then read the reviews inside the flagged months.
    • History is limited for the biggest roofers: I only had their newest 240 reviews. For LOA, WDR, Cool Roofs and Kidd that covers roughly the last 12–16 months, so "normal" for them is based on about a year.
    • Not checked: each reviewer's own review history (whether they're a one-review account) and whether the five-star reviews were later removed. Both would strengthen or weaken these flags.

    Everything is in fake-review-detector/: the raw reviews are in data/reviews/, the per-month results in data/analysis.json, and the scripts in scripts/. It cost about 300 Firecrawl credits.

    Sources usedRan Oct 20, 2026
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