I hope you’re doing well. I’m reaching out as a Local Guide who has been actively contributing to Google Maps for a long time.
Lately, I’ve noticed a drastic and unexplained drop in the view counts on my reviews — even older reviews that previously had stable views are now showing zero or extremely low numbers. Additionally, the “write first reviews for 50 places” milestone has disappeared, even though I had already completed it.
All my reviews are original, genuine, and aligned with Google’s community guidelines. This situation has been quite discouraging, as I’ve always enjoyed helping people through my contributions.
I understand you may not be directly responsible for technical issues, but I’d sincerely appreciate any insight, direction, or help you can provide — whether by escalating the issue to the appropriate team, or even simply guiding me on how to contact the responsible people at Google Maps.
Thank you very much for your time and support.
Best regards,
ELHACENE BOULKROUNE
Local Guide Level 9
Hello @elhacene welcome to the Local Guides Connect community!
Do I understand correctly, the total number of views of reviews has decreased, while the the total number of reviews stayed the same or increased?
First, I suggest to set your Map profile as not restricted, so we can see your published reviews and media and compare the number of posted to those being published.
All posts, i.e. reviews, photos and videos, are checked by an AI filter not only for obeying rules, but also to prevent SPAM and false information. If there is only a little doubt for the latter, the post is not published. Unfortunately, Google never tells us about that. The check is not only done immediately after uploading, but can also happen at later times, which would result in decreasing number of views.
Another reason, why a review becomes hidden after some time and after getting many views, happens when the place is deleted. Usually, we get a notification for that, but some local guides reported never having seen such a mail.
Thank you very much for your warm welcome and helpful response.
Yes, you understood correctly — the total number of my reviews has decreased drastically “first reviews for 50 places badge”, even though the number of views stayed the same or slightly increased.
I’ve always followed the rules and written honest, helpful reviews based on my personal experiences. I also never received any notification from Google about policy violations or place deletions.
In addition, I noticed that the “Write the first reviews for 50 places” badge has disappeared from my profile, even though I had already earned it.
I will update my Maps profile to make it publicly visible so you can check it. I truly appreciate your willingness to help, and I’ll also read the article series you recommended.
Waiting for your help, Thanks again for your support and time.
Hello @elhacene,
thank you for sharing your profile. I can see only 569 out of your 749 reviews are public, either because they were rejected at a later point in time and/or some of the places were deleted. As a first step, I suggest to identify which are those hidden reviews. In How to find your hidden reviews you find a method how to do so.
But not only that. Out of your 5,769 photos and videos, only 5,160 went public, as you can see in this screenshot:
If a photos or videos are attached to a review and only one of is not published, the entire review is also rejected. So after identifying hidden reviews, the first step should be to delete any attached media.
This could happen because of reviews being rejected at a later time.
Hope this helps. Let us know, if you have questions.
@WilfriedB You didn’t answer the most important question I’ve had 54 first review counts in “first review badge” for more than two years, and now in less than a week, it dropped to 7 review
Sorry @elhacene, I didn’t notice you lost so many within some days. That sounds more likely as a software problem, which I cannot give any advice, but I will tag a Connect moderator: @DeniGu could this be a known problem?
There is a content moderation process in place which regularly checks the contributions on Google Maps to ensure that they follow the Maps policies. These checks cover all of the content that has been contributed on Maps, meaning that they might impact your past reviews and photos.
Please fill out this form so that we can forward your account to the responsible team for a check. Please note that this may take some time, and we’re not able to provide an update on the reinstatement of your contributions. Thank you.
The reason your badge is lost is because the comments that earned you the badge were removed from publication. If a review does not comply with Google policies or if a business complains, it may be removed. Google may remove your published comments in bulk. Your comment count will decrease due to comments being removed from publication. No feedback outside of Europe after a review is removed.
It is best to request a review for more than one year and you will be contacted via email. Do not edit your reviews after they are published. Completing this form does not guarantee that your reviews will be published, but they will be widely published.
