Review Bombing

Also called: Review Brigading

Common prompts: "what is review bombing," "how to respond to review bombing," "can you remove fake reviews"

Definition

Review bombing is the coordinated posting of large volumes of negative reviews — on app stores, retail sites, Google, or review platforms — to harm a target's rating, frequently driven by controversy, activism, or competitive sabotage rather than authentic experience. The damage comes from sheer volume overwhelming genuine signal.

Why it matters

Review bombing now carries compounding harm: beyond the visible rating drop, AI engines ingest reviews as sentiment signals, so a coordinated attack can poison how an engine describes a brand long after the campaign ends. Response speed and the ability to flag inauthentic activity to platforms are critical, as is building enough authentic reputational depth that a single coordinated attack cannot define the answer.

Example

A company hit by review bombing after a controversy documents the coordinated pattern for platforms, accelerates authentic review generation, and publishes context — limiting how the episode shapes its AI-engine sentiment.