I am writing this post with quite a frustration. I have been contacted Google Maps on multiple times over the last few years, with little to no help really. They always just come back to you with the same information you can find in FAQ. That’s not why you contact an actual customer support human being. You want actual help. Just now after a really unsuccessful and disappointing chat with Support I read quite a few articles from @MortenCopenhagen about all sorts of violations and tips and learned more than from the lady who kept repeating FAQ answers to me and was very sorry for my frustrations and of course understood how disappointing this is to me. So I have a few questions.
I travel a lot and I love reviewing the places I’ve eaten, visited, did any sort of activity or experience. I do have a habit of posting 3-4 reviews at a time. So my first question: can it be a violation? Posting multiple reviews for a few days in a row? I just prefer that way, rather than an immediate review after my visit. To be all transparent and honest, sometimes I even forget it for weeks-months, and then I post bulk reviews. Is that a problem?
I also noticed that reviews with videos could be an issue too, even tho I post them without a sound, to make sure no music or anything can be heard. Still, I am not sure why those reviews get not posted.
Most recent issues however: I am currently in Thailand for over a month now. Before I started posting my reviews I remembered I didn’t post some from my last trip to Portugal in September, and because I am OCD and I want my reviews to be in order I started by reviewing the places I visited in Lagos, PT. Some of them did actually go through and being visible, then they started to be “Pending for upload” and a week later showing the red message “Review not posted. Try again” Tried again, same thing…
I then started posting my Thailand reviews, from Chiang Mai, but I was already in Bangkok. Now I am in Koh Samui island, still haven’t finished with my Chiang Mai reviews, but some of them keep Pending. But I only noticed it if I tried to open a picture, if I was just scrolling on my profile they all seemed to be posted. So I went and checked my contributions from my partners phone and noticed quite a few of my recent reviews are not showing. Based on @MortenCopenhagen 's articles I deleted some of my pictures and resubmitted my recently hidden reviews but they still do not show. I will upload some screenshots.
I also have an error message on top of my profile saying that “Posting reviews is turned off for this place” - what does this mean? What place? Where I am staying right now? Or for me completely? Am I being restricted? I checked if I am suspended, also based on @MortenCopenhagen 's post, and it’s not the case as I see my badge and points. But I do have a lot of hidden reviews and photos.
I would really appreciate some help and useful tips on what I am doing wrong. Thank you
@NoemiJ that 4th pic … The business is considered to be using fake reviews by Google… That maybe the reason why the review to that place is not getting accepted.
rather than an immediate review after my visit. To be all transparent and honest, sometimes I even forget it for weeks-months, and then I post bulk reviews.
Actually that is a problem… Google maps will consider that as fake review spamming… It’s always better to post reviews of a place that you visited within a short time itself…it will be always better to do it while you are in the same location…
Hi @SarathUpendran thank you very much. Which business considered to be using fake reviews? The 4th pic for me is the one with my own profile showing that message “Posting reviews is turned off for this place”. And how do you know if a business is considered to be using fake reviews by Google?
Thank you for confirming my suspicion about posting later, and especially from a different country. It’s odd tho, because quite a few reviews for Portugal went through (while I was already here in Thailand) before they started to get rejected.
This is Consumer Alerts,
When Google detect suspicious review activity on a business or a business violates Google policies, then Google may impose restrictions on its Business Profile and you may encounter the following:
Banner: You may see a banner on the business’s page to let you know that suspicious reviews were removed.
Reviews Posting restrictions: You may not be able to post reviews or ratings on the place for a period of time.
Removed reviews: Google may hide reviews for the business for a period of time.
New google maps feature
Today every local guide recieved this message in there profile… From what I understand the Google’s new AI feature will detect the fake reviews of a business and remove the fake reviews and disable the business from receiving new reviews.
There is no problem in sending bulk reviews. You can comment 3-4 times a day. I think this number should be 4. When I first became a local guide, for a certain period of time, no more than four comments were published per day. I can currently comment more than four times a day. When I continued as a local guide, I was given the right to edit reviews three times a day.
Hi @NoemiJ , thanks for this very long post.
There are a lot of questions, so we will have to touch several points, but let me start from the basement: Most of the time if a review isn’t posted it is not because we did something wrong.
So why this happens? Reviews are a very sensitive point, because our reviews can influence the consumers. Due to this in several parts of the world there are laws to protect Consumers and Businesses from “Fake reviews”. Laws that are obliging the platform where the reviews are hosted to take an action. Considering that there are more than 150 million of Local Guides it is impossible to have a human operator to check our reviews. All the platforms have built automated systems to do that, and the instruction is: “in the doubt, take it down”. I wrote a very long topic about that: Your review has not been published. Do you know why?
This means that our reviews can be made private even if we have not done anything wrong. So what to do in this case?
The way to act is the same, but with some variations depending on where the review was written. For reviews related to places that are within the EU, in fact, we get a notification, and information on what to do. In other places, we don’t. The reason is that in the EU there is a specific law that obliges those who block our review to inform us.
As you may already know a review can be blocked if the text or any of the attached media is found to be contrary to the policies: Maps user-generated content policy - Maps User Contributed Content Policy Help
What we need to know is how to find your 31 blocked reviews and what to do to get them released. Reviews in the EU
This is easy, because you can see the blocked reviews in your contributions, as we can see from your screenshots, and you also receive an email informing you Reviews outside the EU
This part is a bit more challenging, because you have to view your public profile (you can open this link in a web browser in incognito mode) and compare it with the contributions in your private profile (when you are logged in).
the next steps are always the same:
if the review contains images try to remove them.
if after removing the images the review is not published (or if there are no images), try to correct the text. Making the review “personal” can help.
Appeal
If after this the review is not published you can appeal, so that an operator can verify the review(s). The appeal procedure varies between locations in the EU and locations outside the EU.
Appeal in the EU
The appeal is automatically made available for each individual review, if the alleged violation is related to the text of the review. Just click on the “Appeal” link. The verification is quite fast, and usually in a couple of days the review is released Appeal outside the EU
The verification process takes up to two months, but you only need to make one appeal for all blocked reviews. To do so, use this form: Account investigation for contributions not visible on Google Maps
Please remember that after you have appealed you must not modify the review, because this action will cancel the appeal submitted, and you will have to appeal again.
Finally, regarding the message that has appeared on everyone’s profile since today, it is a general message (very poorly written) that is not specifically related to your reviews. But I think you already know that, because you said you had already seen my today’s topic: Nothing to be scared of: New "Consumer alert message in your profile
@ErmesT wow, thank you so much for your detailed and very useful comment. I don’t know why Customer Support can’t help like this. You’d think that’s their job… But I learned so so much in less than 24 hours from Connect
@ErmesT, about what you said here about appealing:
“Please remember that after you have appealed you must not modify the review, because this action will cancel the appeal submitted, and you will have to appeal again.”
but I can continue making new reviews, right? I just submitted my form and was about to write new reviews, but I thought I’d ask about it first.
We are more than 150 million Local Guides, @NoemiJ .
Customer support (for Google 1?) may help you for sure with FAQ about the account, but don’t have the specific knowledge, nor the time, to check an issue and to go give you a specific reply.
I had several hidden reviews too, so I wanted to deeply analyse the problem because a simple link to the rules most of the time doesn’t work
Of course you can. @NoemiJ
Now that you know what happens, keep in mind to check if after 24 hours the reviews are visible.
If a review doesn’t have any media attached is normally published instantly, but if you attach some media, especially videos, the cheek by the AI may takes a few hours.
Good luck, and please keep us updated.
On the meantime enjoy Connect and if you want share your experience of Local Guide with is
Personally, as a local guide, I have not received such a message on my profile. Google needs to crack down on fake 5-star reviews first. There are many businesses that have been given 5 stars in a short time. There isn’t even any content in the comments. The only comment of the commenters was made only for that business.
There are also local guides in Turkey who review businesses in exchange for money. Once these people are identified, they must be removed from the local guidance program. Of course, there may be people who do this not only in Turkey but also in many parts of the world. Local guidance is not something to be commented on for money. Moreover, by doing this, they are committing an unethical act. They write a fake review about a business they’ve never been to. Google, on the other hand, elevates these people as local guides and makes them visible to everyone.
@ErmesT I am wondering if the counting the weekly streak for contributions can be wrong? Would the fact that some reviews aren’t posted publicly yet (as we discusssed that in this post), affect it? Like if my reviews for a whole week haven’t been posted publicly, would that reset the streak count? I have been writing reviews frequently since the beginning of the year and the latest notification I received for writing reviews said I am on a 1 week streak. This is definitely not true, I should be on week 5 or 6.
I noticed a wrongly reset count last year too, when I was travelling across Europe and reviewing constantly for about 4 months, but at one point it reset at week 9. I know I didn’t miss a week, so this is annoying.
Please be advised that hidden/private reviews do not count towards the weekly streak. However, the relevant team reinstated all your contributions that follow our guidelines so you should see them in your profile.
