# Review Removal Rate Map
> An independent tool that tracks deleted Google Maps reviews city by city and recalculates what a venue's real rating would look like if those reviews had never been removed. Currently covering Germany, expanding further.

## About
- Publisher: Edem Devlet (@DevletEdem on X)
- Contact: https://x.com/EdemDevletEN
- Data source: Google Maps review-deletion notices (official primary source notices shown publicly on venue pages)
- Last updated: 2026-08-14
- Methodology: Deleted review counts are taken from official Google Maps notice text. The "real score" is the minimum possible rating if all deleted reviews scored 1 star: (visible_score × visible_count + 1 × deleted_estimate) / (visible_count + deleted_estimate)
- Coverage: Currently Germany — Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig, Hannover, Mainz, Stuttgart, Aachen, Bremen; further cities and countries in progress
- Languages: English and German (Englisch und Deutsch)
- Browser extension: "Worst-Case Rating" for Chrome and Firefox — reads the Google Maps page you have open, detects the review-removal notice, and displays the adjusted worst-case rating in place. Calculates in-page, so it works for any venue showing a removal notice, not only the cities tracked here. No data is collected.

## Concept
Google allows businesses to request removal of reviews under local defamation law. This tool makes that process transparent: for every venue with a deletion notice, it shows how many reviews were removed and what the corrected rating would be. The goal is not to condemn venues but to give users full context when reading ratings. Currently focused on Germany, where review deletion is particularly common under defamation law.

## Key Findings
- Venues are color-coded by deletion severity on a graded scale: slate-grey = no deletions, then a light-to-dark blue gradient where darker blue means more reviews were deleted
- The "Highest Deletion Rate" table ranks venues by share of deleted reviews relative to all reviews ever submitted
- "Clean" venues: those with no deletion notices and a meaningful review count
- Some venues have had a substantial share of their reviews removed under defamation law
- Expansion underway — use the city selector, browser geolocation, or free pan/zoom plus "Search this area" to reach a city

## Views
- Map view: Interactive map. The Germany overview renders no city layer — pick a city from the selector, use browser geolocation, or pan/zoom freely and press "Search this area" to load the viewport's venues. Selecting a city flies there and loads venue-level markers with clustering; zoom in to see individual venues
- Statistics view: Three ranked tables — highest deletion rates, worst real ratings, cleanest venues; pie chart showing deletion distribution across buckets
- URLs: language-prefixed paths — /de/{city} and /de/{city}/{type} (and the /en/… equivalents); e.g. /de/munich, /en/berlin/restaurants. Map camera and venue search use ?lat=&lng=&z=&q= query params.

## Data Fields
- total_reviews: Current visible Google review count
- deleted_reviews_min / max: Range of deleted reviews from official Google notice
- percentage_deleted: Deleted / (visible + deleted) × 100
- real_score: Recalculated star rating assuming all deleted reviews were 1-star
- review_notice: Official Google Maps deletion notice text (primary source)
- venueType: Venue category (restaurants, cafes, clinics, hotels)
- city: German city the venue belongs to

## Coverage
- Berlin (restaurants, cafés, clinics) — complete
- Hamburg (restaurants) — complete
- Munich (restaurants, cafés, clinics, hotels) — complete
- Cologne (restaurants) — complete
- Düsseldorf (restaurants) — complete
- Frankfurt am Main (restaurants, clinics) — complete
- Leipzig (restaurants, cafés, clinics) — complete
- Hannover (restaurants, cafés, clinics) — complete
- Mainz (restaurants, cafés, clinics) — complete
- Stuttgart (restaurants, cafés, clinics) — complete
- Aachen (restaurants, cafés, clinics) — complete
- Bremen (restaurants, cafés, clinics, hotels) — complete

## Pages
The site is bilingual: every page exists under /de/ (German, the default) and /en/ (English). The bare root / redirects to /de.
- /de , /en : Main application — overview map + country-wide statistics
- /de/about , /en/about : Methodology, data sources, the real-rating formula, social links
- /de/statistics , /en/statistics : Germany-wide deletion-rate rankings
- /de/extension , /en/extension : The Worst-Case Rating browser extension — shows the adjusted worst-case rating directly on Google Maps. Available for Chrome (https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/worst-case-rating/kljgcgijgpadigheeipmebfolfophfdg) and Firefox (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/worst-case-rating/)
- /de/{city} , /en/{city} : Per-city deletion statistics for major cities (e.g. /de/munich, /en/berlin)
- /de/{city}/{type} , /en/{city}/{type} : Per-city, per-type pages — types are restaurants, cafes, clinics, hotels (e.g. /de/munich/restaurants)