interestingly they have archived reviews also one minute old. Has Shopify taken actions?
I would guess so, but in my opinion simply archiving the reviews is not good enough here.
If a fake / suspicious review gets removed, that is not really a consequence. That is just removing the thing that should never have been there in the first place.
@eytan-shopify said recently on X / Twitter that Shopify is “actively identifying the partners doing this, and the consequences will be real.”
This is exactly where that needs to apply. For repeat offenders, it should not just be a case of archiving a few reviews and leaving the partner’s apps live as if nothing happened. Their whole portfolio should be investigated, and if there is a pattern of review manipulation or partner violations, their apps should be delisted.
Otherwise the incentive is still completely broken. Bad actors get the ranking boost, the trust signal, maybe even Built for Shopify, and then the worst case is that some reviews quietly disappear later.
That is not a real consequence.
100% agree, we need punishment
Speaking of this problem Partner, after they were called out publicly on X, the obvious “Leave a 5 Star Review, Use App for FREE Forever 
” banner appeared to be removed.
Their review pattern then seemed to almost completely flatten out for a few weeks. After that, the reviews started picking up again, which is what made me look a bit closer.
I found what appeared to be a very clear incentivised-review flow in their apps. The app’s frontend code appeared to contain a carefully gated remake of the “free access in exchange for a five-star review” banner.
The condition I found was:
const C = !b && !S && (w === "Basic" || w === "Grow");
From the surrounding code, C was then used to decide whether the review incentive banner should render. In other words, the banner appeared to be shown only when the store was not a development store, not a collaborator account, and was on the Basic or Grow Shopify plan. That would, of course, hide the flow from development stores, collaborator accounts, and Shopify staff/review accounts, as those would not be on the Basic or Grow merchant plans.
The banner text itself was visible in the served JavaScript bundle:
children: c.jsx(V, {
variant: "headingLg",
as: "h2",
children: "Leave a 5 Star Review, Use App for FREE Forever 🎉"
})
I also tested it on a real store and saw the banner actively displayed to merchants, including artificial urgency.
I reported this to Shopify with the evidence I had. Since then, the Partner appears to have removed the code, but no visible action seems to have been taken against the developer.
This is potentially one of the worst examples I have come across so far, because it was not just a bad prompt or a poorly worded review request. It appeared to include active code-gating designed to hide the behaviour from Shopify staff checks and from other developers investigating it.
If the end result is simply “they removed it after being reported” with no meaningful enforcement, then the incentive for bad actors is obvious: run the scheme, collect the reviews, remove the code if caught, and keep the benefit.
That is exactly why this keeps happening.
@Paige-Shopify - Can we get Shopify’s view on this? This is a repeat offender who has been called out previously, changed their behaviour, and then appears to have come back with more sophisticated techniques designed to obscure the issue from Shopify and other developers. From the outside, it looks like all my report achieved was getting them to remove the code. Has any meaningful action actually been taken? Honestly, I can see why some developers decide not to take the honest route when this appears to be the outcome.
@malisauskasLT - You might find this one interesting - its the same partner from your initial tweet.
Incredible investigative work @Ollie_autoBlogger!
Incredible investigation, thank you. @Ollie_autoBlogger
Glad to see that @malisauskasLT shared the results of this investigation as well.
Thank you @Ollie_autoBlogger
This issue is really frustrating. I get like 10-20 requests for fake reviews per week. Once someone wrote me on whatsapp and i denied. One day later i got a one star review on my App.
We are working hard to give real value to merchants and get honest reviews for our Apps. I hope one day there is a solution for this problem
Should we start some kind of crowd funding to pay @Ollie_autoBlogger for doing the job that Shopify refuses to do?
The big question here is: how did you manage to get a follow-up? 
Also, cheers @malisauskasLT for sharing on X!
There is a response on @malisauskasLT X thread from Product Management at Shopify:
Why can’t he just push a button to ban whoever is doing this, it takes less time and effort than writing a message with corporate tone.
I saw this and responded in the thread - It’s exactly this kind of cryptic response that makes it even more frustrating.
Update, Shopify (Jonathan) says they’re going to share an update on all of this in the “next few weeks”: Jonathan Zazove on X: "@AlexHooper78640 @malisauskasLT That's a fair hit, Alex. You're right that "can't share details" wears thin when it's the third version of the same line. I won't add a fourth. Let me come back to something specific in the next few weeks. Hold me to it." / X
Let’s see…
Shopify’s handling of reviews over the past 2 years is horrendous. I am not sure what’s driving their “strategy” or who it’s helping. It’s certainly not helping long-time app developers with legit reviews. From my experience it’s a total failure! And unfortunately their failings impact an app’s business: low reviews = lower app store ranking.
Let’s look at a couple of key points from their policy and how that policy is applied to real world Shopify usage.
Archiving
Why do some submitted reviews not show up? … Shopify App Store reviews may be archived if we determine they are outdated or less relevant. Learn more about archived reviews.
This is false. Reviews are archived if a store goes out of business. That is it. Shopify does not care if it is “outdated or less relevant”. I have several irrelevant reviews, one from 6+ years ago that solely mentions a free trial period that hasn’t existed in 5+ years. Not archived. Shopify support does not care that it’s “irrelevant” or accurate. They just stonewall.
Shadow Banning
Submitting a review doesn’t guarantee it will be published, and reviews may be removed after publication for a variety of reasons, such as whether the shop is on a free trial or frozen, whether it has other governance or trust enforcements in action against it, and other factors
I know of shops that have operated on Shopify for years who have had their reviews shadow banned across all apps. This includes old reviews and any future reviews. The shop owner is completely unaware. When they’re logged in they see their reviews but no one else does. Shopify support says “it is filtered automatically” and won’t tell the shop owner why. There is no valid reason why. If Shopify has “evidence” confront the shop owner with it. They won’t. It’s all BS.
How much of this is going on?
Malicious Reviews
We have one review that contains all lies. Shopify has proof and they absolutely do nothing about it but stonewall by sending you into a support loop.
Support
I have review tickets open for months about fake, outdated, and irrelevant reviews. Shopify does nothing but send you in a loop: “we’re waiting to hear back from our Partner Governance team”, “it’s with our Partner Governance team”, “you should hear from our Partner Governance team in 24 hours”. Meanwhile installs continue to go down due to the apps lower positions in the app store.
Yes mate! Nice work getting them to commit to an announcement. I’m keen to see what they come up with. As much as we all complain, it’s a seriously complex issue, so I do feel for them. It’s definitely not an easy problem to solve.
I’ve experienced everything you mentioned there, so I definitely feel your pain! Then, to top it all off, you watch your competitors flying ahead with reviews like:
“[Insert app name] has absolutely changed my life and increased my sales by 1000%! The [insert very specific functionality] has been an absolute game changer!!! AAAAA+++++”
MyStore - Used the app for 1 minute.
Shopify always promise the moon and stars, then disappear…
I do feel like the noise partners/devs are making is finally starting to make a difference, but it’s pretty crazy it has taken this much shouting.
The reason this should matter to Shopify is that bad app experiences become bad Shopify experiences.
If a merchant is misled by fake reviews, installs a poor app, wastes time, loses money, or has their store messed around with, they’re not cleanly separating “bad partner” from “Shopify”. To them, it happened on the Shopify platform.
That means less confidence in Shopify, lower chance they upgrade, lower chance they recommend it, and eventually more chance they churn from Shopify altogether.
Even if Shopify’s long-term vision is for Sidekick to handle more of what public apps do today (let’s be honest, this is where it’s heading), merchants are using the App Store right now. So the trickle-down effect of fake reviews is damaging Shopify’s own product experience.
Where is the difference? A tweet from a Shopify employee?
Have you seen improvements to Shopify since Online Store 2.0 was released? From my vista everything has gone downhill and I do mean everything from development process to their development libraries to API deprecations to downtime to support. All of this in the gutter.
What evidence exists to indicate this? There has been explosion of new apps. App store is flooded with trash. A lot violating Shopify’s own policies and initiatives. Like review situation they do nothing about it. At one point you could not add apps in certain categories. This is long gone.