In information we have collected and tested from Facebook Support, we now know that Facebook will remove fans from your page from countries you select to not show your page to. They don’t hide your content from view, they actually remove them from your page fan roster.
Why Removing Them Is Awesome
Facebook’s algorithm takes into account Engagement as a ranking factor for the “Edgerank” of your posts. A post’s Edgerank is how Facebook determines which posts will be shown to your fans. The better the Edgerank, the more likely your post will show up.
If you have a bunch of fake Facebook fans, now you have a bunch of people who never engage with your posts. This means that any engagement you do get, such as people clicking “Like” or commenting will have less effect on your Edgerank because a lower percentage of your total fans are engaging with your content.
Pro Tip: Often fake fans will be from countries such as India, Turkey or Mexico. It really depends on where you business is located and who you do business with. You can see in your Page Insights how many fans you have from each country.
If you can remove this dead weight, your Edgerank will increase and your posts will get shown more often to your fans. You can also save on Boosted Post budget that is being shown to fake fans or fans in countries you don’t do business in.
How To Add Country And Age Restrictions
From Facebook Support:
“In order to have more control over who is able to view and like your Page, I would recommend exploring the option we offer to gate your page to certain audiences.”
To see options to gate your Page:
1. Navigate to your Page
2. Select Settings (at top right)
3. Select Country Restrictions
4. Enter the countries you want to show your page to or that you want to exclude and hit save. (see image)
From here you can choose to show your Page only to specific countries, through the Country Restrictions field or to certain age ranges, through the Age Restrictions field.
Please note that if you make changes to your current Page settings, you could lose a portion of your existing fan base. For example, if you adjust your age restrictions to 21+, all fans who are under the age of 21 will be removed as fans of your Page.
You can also set up privacy settings for your Page posts as described here: https://www.facebook.com/help/236898969688346
If this is true, and so far it seems to be working, Facebook will not just hide your page from people in these countries (or ages) but will remove them as fans of your page.
Facebook will not immediately remove those fans, it can take a few weeks before it removed them all. I believe (not confirmed) that it removes them as those people log in.
I hope this helps!
More Facebook Help!
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Wow, this was really helpful, THANK YOU.
I tried this and it doesn’t seem to work.
We’re a UK based prog rock tribute band, and we have 7000 followers and 40,000 likes. While I know we have a small number of fans abroad, the vast majority of overseas likes are probably fakes.
Yesterday I followed the procedure above, and blocked all African countries to see what would happen. This should have removed about 500 followers. Today there are four more followers than yesterday, and they still include the ones in the countries I blocked.
Is it different for a group page than it is for a personal one?
We’ve found it can take several weeks for the fans to drop off. We haven’t tested it for a year or so, things may have changed. I will try to test it out again soon and update the post with our results.
Did you ever find a way to remove fake profiles from your page?
As far as I know, there is no way to remove fakes except by identifying them and blocking them. Facebook (supposedly) cleans them out as they find them.
You are awesome! very helpful, thank you so much…