What kinds of reviews violate Google's policies?

Short answer

Fake or incentivized reviews, off-topic or spammy content, conflict-of-interest reviews (from owners, staff, competitors), and anything harassing, hateful, sexually explicit, or containing personal information. Those can be flagged and removed.

The main violation categories

• Fake engagement — reviews that misrepresent a real experience.
• Off-topic, spam, duplicated, or promotional content.
• Conflict of interest — owner, employee, or competitor reviews.
• Restricted/illegal content, harassment, hate speech, personal info.

An honest negative review is not a violation — you can't get it removed just for being critical. Knowing the real categories helps you flag the reviews that genuinely qualify and skip the ones that don't.