Dramatic cull of underperforming images and videos

Google Maps tips & tricks
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@nigelfreeney: I made ai do it! I was trying to get a photo of a man ripping up 6"x4" photos
@nigelfreeney: I made ai do it! I was trying to get a photo of a man ripping up 6"x4" photos1536×1024 187 KB

@tony_b @shunsader @MortenCopenhagen @AdamGT @TerryPG @JustJake

The background to my decision to delete about 15% of my overall submissions was to see if this had a positive impact on the performance of the remaining photos, videos, and reviews.

I had about 250 hidden images (out of 9,755), some of which were failed attempts and creating new or editing existing listings. There were 11 hidden reviews (out of 111), five of which are so hidden that I can’t find them!

After the cull I still have 145 hidden images and 5 hidden reviews.

Strategy

Reviews:

I removed one review that had been clearly marked as problematic.

Images and videos:

I removed all images that had been listed for more than a month, which had less than 199 views.

Exceptions:

  • Showing in the top photos for the poi but the poi is obscure. These have value but are never going to show a huge number of views

  • Drone 360 – these are relatively rare and don’t yet attract a lot of views

  • Drone video – These often perform very well to start with and then stall

  • Part of a virtual tour – these are growing in interest but can be slow to gain a foothold

Results of the cull

Points 61,374 to 52,826 = 8,548 (13.9% reduction)

Images 9,755 to 7,189 = 2,566 (9% reduction)

Image Views 196,350,452 to 197,716,384 (appears to be about a 60% reduction in the expected numbers for this month)

Views per image 20,128 to 27,486 (30% increase)

Videos 1,364 to1,119 Culled over 245 (18% reduction)

Video views 13,932,362 (Lost about 25,000 views)

Views per video 9,329 to 12,450 (30% increase)

Of course this has had a significant impact on my points total. My near term goal is still to get 200 million photo views by the end of 2025. So, the change is primarily quality over quantity.

Increased recent activity

What I have seen in the last 2-3 months is a significant uptick in the activity of my top view count images.

  • 24x photos with 1-2.7 million views.

  • 7x closed POIs

  • At least 15 of the remaining 17 have been active at least once but as many as three times.

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Very interesting @nigelfreeney. This will give me greater incentive to get mine done.

I’ve been taking a very gentle approach to the concept of culling, But I think I need to make a greater effort right at the beginning of August.

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Yes very interesting @nigelfreeney and I’m particularly interested in that you have been unable to find 5 of the 11 hidden reviews (out of 111)!

What do you mean by one of your reviews had been clearly marked as problematic?

It’s great to hear that you have seen a significant uptick in the activity of your top view count images but what about video?

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Great work, @nigelfreeney. It’ll be very interesting to see if this impacts your remaining photos and videos.

I’ve been slowly chipping away at my hidden media. There’s some that will hurt to delete because of how many views they got before the POI was deleted (how can a park be deleted!?!). The Top100 site definitely makes it much easier to see what’s floating around out there, and how many hidden photos I’ve been able to locate.

Keep us posted on the progress, man!

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I saw the same with my reviews and could never find 4 of the hidden reviews. Comparing the number reviews I can see in my takeouts and counting how far I can scroll back under My Contributions, the latter shows only about two thirds of my reviews. This applies when being logged in, as well as anonymous. So, the missing four must be among the oldest reviews.

Same question as @AdamGT: do you have examples?

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Hi @tony_b,

I dipped my toe into deleting a few images here and there. I new that really this wouldn’t make any significant difference. One of the reasons for holding back was that I didn’t want to delete what considered to be really good photos. It’s also a bit of a chore. I was scrolling down and after a while I would lose my place and have to scroll on down again. With 10,000 images this was quite tiring. Once I had committed to the idea properly I realised that if I sorted by views that it would be a little easier. It was a drag, pun intended, to scroll all the way down to the point where the 199 views and less were listed - one of the reasons why I keep saying that better implementation of search functions on our accounts is vital. It would have been doddle if I could have reversed the views search so that all photos between 0-199 where listed together first. So, once I had gotten myself comfortable, with a cold fizzy drink close by, I set about demolishing those photos. Keep in mind I had a ruthless attitude, and adhered to my small list of exceptions. Having a reaction on the photos was not a reason to save it.

I kept thinking of the phrase “ripping the plaster off”, which is kind of what it felt like. I knew there was no going back once I started. Of course, I am considering whether to reupload ‘a few’ of the images to give them a second chance…

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Hi @AdamGT & @WilfriedB,

Two years ago I created a new listing for a pizza restaurant within a hotel complex in Majorca/Mallorca. Restaurante Natalie https://maps.app.goo.gl/qT5eDx7nZ6fJUnJc8

I wrote a review of a meal we had. All was fine. When I was looking back I spotted a spelling mistake. I corrected the spelling and resubmitted - bam not acceptable and hidden. I asked for a review because it was in Europe still not OK. I think that in the background it had listed me as the owner when I created the listing.

Nothing to see here, so I deleted it.

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Hi @JustJake,

I suspect that the vast majority of my remaining hidden images are for POIs that are no longer listed. My understanding is that unless you delete an image you retain views you have accumulated.

“…How can a park be deleted?”

One of the problems with using AI and not having any redress, “C~ap in c~ap out!”

As I have said elsewhere, exhaustively, we need proper account management tools - complex search and submission recall for starters. I’m sure I am not alone in making the odd mistake. One recent one was adding adding a local Asda Express. The submission was accepted and then I realised that I had made a typo and it was listed as Asda Epress. Then any attempt to correct the name was instantly rejected.

This is wrong on so many levels. How useful is AI that can’t read the name clearly shown in multiple photos. It can’t flag an obvious misspelling. There is no channel to receive a please can you confirm this is what you meant to list because there appears to be a misspelling… “C~ap in c~ap out!”

This is a post that is intended to be regularly updated!

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Great News @nigelfreeney and I applaud you for starting this . Kudos to the increase in average media views. This is something I have been doing for a while. I do find it easier to go through the last 6 months new contributions on a monthly basis. Why because I feel I am on top of it this way, having already culled monthly. Like you I have parameters for number of views in certain time periods. I did ease back a little since the slowdown in total views i.e. Mar./24.

Once a year every August I go through all my media right from the beginning, some 6 years ago. I use my tablet for this, I don’t know why but I can easily scroll Through my 9,000 media contributions to the beginning,

I started on my reviews a couple of months. again using my tablet from the beginning. It also shows more photos per page.
The top 100 helped me with the numbers.
I have removed 70 hidden and closed reviews in the few months from 1700 plus reviews,
@AdamGT has hinted at possible new tools to help us find and identify these hidden contributions. Can’t wait.

So again Kudos to you for starting the process.

Question For all… Does hidden contributions include closed POIs???

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Do you think any of the ideas here New Local Guides Maps Contribution Dashboard would help @nigelfreeney?

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My understanding is that photos contributed to POIs that are no longer listed are flagged as Unknown place. While there views maybe retained, of course they will not continue to accumulate.

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I don’t believe so @TerryPG and on this, see my reply to @nigelfreeney

I’m pleased to hear this. Imagine the alternative and having to calculate the numbers yourself each day!

It’s a busy time of the month for me but very soon we’ll be ready for beta testing…

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Hello Terry,
what is a “closed POI”? There can be one of several different cases:

  • The business is marked as permanently closed: In this case our media is still visible and can even increase the views.

  • The pin was deleted: While the photos show “Unknown place” under My Contributions, I saw three different cases:

  • the photo is marked with the triangle on the upper left and darkened: this only happens for media made in the EU.

  • the photo is still public, i.e. sharing a link from My Contributions with other users it is visible

  • it appears normal under My Contributions but is not visible to others

In another recent thread, @PrasadVR confirmed, having seen the latter cases too. Even if a media was made inside the EU, I rarely see the exclamation mark (“the triangle”).

Even in this case, where two places disappeared (and finally wer reinstated), I saw all three different cases. Furthermore, while bot places wer reinstated two days ago, the photos of one place are still hidden:

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While those, linked to the other place, even though showing “Unknown place” until three days ago, were always public.

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@nigelfreeney @tony_b @AdamGT @TerryPG @JustJake @WilfriedB

Thanks for sharing this detailed analysis @nigelfreeney - the 30% improvement in average views is certainly impressive statistic!
However, I find myself questioning whether we might be missing the bigger picture here.

Don’t get me wrong, the cleanup results look great on paper.
But… did it contribute to more views on the remaining media??

I keep coming back to one fundamental question:
if these photos and reviews are hidden anyway, what’s the actual harm in leaving them there?
We’re talking about content that nobody sees, yet we’re spending hours of our precious time hunting it down and deleting it.

I’m struggling to see how improving our personal statistics translates into better maps for users. If the goal is really to enhance Google Maps, shouldn’t we be focusing our energy on what actually makes a difference - creating more valuable contributions? Going out and adding and reviewing locations, adding missing roads, uploading photos of places that need them, writing detailed experiences that help other travelers.

The irony here is that while we’re sitting at home scrolling through thousands of submissions to delete the underperformers, we could be out there contributing fresh content that genuinely improves the platform.
Ten new quality reviews would probably do more for Google Maps than deleting a hundred hidden ones.

Why are we doing Map’s housekeeping?
If there’s truly a problem with how content gets hidden or how deleted POIs are handled, that’s a system issue that Google should address with proper tools.
If a location is remove, remove all associated media.
Why should we spend our volunteer hours on what could easily be an automated process?

I think we’ve gotten a bit caught up in optimizing metrics that don’t necessarily reflect our core mission.
Yes, it’s satisfying to see those averages go up, but are we celebrating the right thing? Shouldn’t we be celebrating the Local Guide who contributed 500 new reviews this month, even if some got hidden, rather than celebrating improved statistics?

Google should give us the tools to manage this efficiently - simple filters, bulk actions, automated cleanup options.
Until then, I’d rather spend my precious time uploading and contributing new content that actually helps people discover and explore the world around them.

Just my thoughts - I may be the exception here.

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No you are not (at least not the only) exception @abermans. I full agree!

Nevertheless “If there’s truly a problem with how content gets hidden” is an important point to be aware whether, when and why some of our content is hidden. For this reason, I don’t care about “Unknown place”, but all other hidden contributions.

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Hello @abermans

Why finding unpublished reviews and media is not always a waste of time? Well as others and recently @IzzyOz (see How I discovered that I had hidden reviews & media have found, sometimes the AI gets it wrong and there’s an appeals process in place for this. You will see here that Izzy successfully appealed and had her unpublished reviews and media re-published.

Do you think any of the filters mentioned in the New Local Guides Maps Contribution Dashboard post might help Sam?

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I quite understand your reasoning @abermans, but as a person who is fascinated by numbers and statistics, I easily get caught by every new suggestion. As my “hidden” numbers are tiny, I was ignoring them at one time, but I feel like I was chastised or reprimanded for my inaction. Furthermore, the Leaderboard data entry platform by @AdamGT now has an automated pop-up while entering our monthly information, thereby making it more difficult to ignore the perceived “problem”.

So yes I did spend hours trying to find 7 hidden photos and 4 hidden reviews. Then IF we find them, there’s the decision whether to delete or appeal the photos, and if to delete, edit, or appeal the reviews.

I don’t think you’re the exception, but I’m an anomaly. Having relatively few contributions and limited opportunity to change that, it is hard to decide the best course of action sometimes.

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Nicely said @tony_b (I had to use a translator to understand :laughing:) and you make an important point here: There are too many local guides who are not even aware, a big part of their contributions did not go public and I agree with @abermans, Google should provide tools. Even though @AdamGT started a great initiative to push for better support and is working hard to provide some workarounds, we should focus more on contributing and improving the quality of our posts rather than managing the past work.

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@tony_b @WilfriedB I’m in two minds about this. Firstly, I think it’s useful that we at least know how many of each type of contribution we’ve made are unpublished. As we all know many were unaware that they even had any unpublished or how to calculate the numbers let alone regularly do this to keep on top of it. The recently introduced Leaderboard System feature addresses this and I know that many use this regularly through the month and not just at the end of the month. Secondly, knowing which contributions are unpublished can help us learn what to improve in the quality of our contributions.

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1,000%, yes. I get nauseous when I make an edit that is incorrect. Maybe a little extreme, but if I’m trying to fix something, I’d hate to make it worse. Being able to edit our edits, view and sort our edits, understand approvals and denials … all of it!

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