A good idea has had a rough rollout
Shopify has started removing App Store reviews as part of a wider effort to tackle fake, incentivized, and otherwise untrusted feedback. I support that goal. Reviews influence which apps merchants install, so cleaning up manipulation is important for store owners and for developers who play by the rules.
The problem is that the rollout has made mistakes. Genuine reviews appear to have been caught alongside the reviews Shopify intended to remove. Shopify warned that this could happen when it announced the stronger detection system, and a public follow-up from Shopify's Jonathan Zazove indicates that the team is looking into problems with the rollout.
That distinction matters: a removed review is not proof that an app developer did anything wrong. Sometimes the detection system has simply made the wrong call.
autoBlogger has lost reviews from real, paying customers
autoBlogger has been affected too. Reviews have disappeared from merchants who have used and paid for the app for more than two years. These are not anonymous accounts with no meaningful relationship to the product. They are long-standing customers with real subscription histories and genuine support interactions.
Losing feedback like that is frustrating because each honest review represents trust earned over time. It also feels unfair when legitimate developers lose hard-won reviews while the broader problem of manipulated review activity is still being addressed.
Shopify is investigating, and I hope the affected reviews are assessed using the underlying customer history rather than only the signal that triggered an automated removal.
How to find reviews that may have been removed
Shopify does not provide developers with every detail behind its detection systems. An independent tool can still help you build an initial list of reviews that have disappeared.
Go to the Let's Metrix developer page, search for your app, open the Reviews view, and switch the filter to Deleted. Let's Metrix has no connection to me or autoBlogger; it is simply a useful third-party place to start.
Treat that list as a lead rather than definitive proof. Compare it with your own support, billing, install, and customer records before contacting Shopify. Also check whether each review was unpublished or archived: Shopify's review policy allows developers to challenge a mistaken unpublishing, but says archived reviews cannot be appealed.
- Open Let's Metrix for developers and find your app.
- Select Reviews and change the filter to Deleted.
- Record the merchant, review date, rating, and review text where available.
- Match each result with your own customer records.
- Confirm whether Shopify unpublished or archived the review before trying to appeal.
Send Shopify evidence, not just a review count
If you believe a review was removed incorrectly, contact Shopify through the official route. Shopify's help page says to reply directly to the removal notification email and include a detailed explanation plus supporting evidence. If you need help locating the case, contact Shopify Partner Support.
For each affected store, explain the genuine relationship clearly. Include dated customer-support conversations, app install history, subscription or billing records, and the length of time the merchant used the app. In autoBlogger's case, the strongest evidence is straightforward: some affected reviewers have used and paid for the app for over two years.
Only send information that is relevant, protect merchant privacy, and use an official Shopify channel. A tidy table with one row per store will be easier to assess than a long emotional email.
- Store domain or Shopify identifier
- The removed review and its original date
- Install and subscription dates
- Invoices or billing records showing a genuine paid relationship
- Dated support tickets or conversations showing real product use
- A short explanation of why the review complies with Shopify's policy
A simple appeal email developers can adapt
Keep the message factual and make it easy for the reviewer at Shopify to verify each case. For example: Subject: Evidence for genuine reviews removed from [App name]. Hello Shopify Partner Support, I believe the attached reviews were unpublished in error. For each store, I have included the review date, subscription history, billing evidence, and dated support interactions showing genuine use of our app. Please ask Partner Governance to reassess these reviews. I am happy to provide any further evidence you need. Thank you.
Attach or link to a concise evidence table. Do not include sensitive merchant data that Shopify does not need, and do not contact merchants asking them to recreate a review while the original decision is being investigated.
I hope these are teething issues—not a reason to stop
I hope the current mistakes are teething issues in a system that will improve quickly. Shopify needs a way to correct false positives, communicate clearly with developers, and restore genuine reviews when the evidence supports them.
Once that process is working properly, I also hope we begin to see meaningful action against developers who have deliberately manipulated reviews. Removing questionable reviews is useful, but lasting trust will require consistent enforcement against the behaviour behind them.
I am happy for autoBlogger to take a few hits if the final result is a better Shopify App Store for everyone. Genuine reviews should be restored, bad actors should face real consequences, and merchants should be able to trust that the feedback they see reflects real experience. That is still an outcome worth pursuing.