Google Maps Deleting Reviews - A Rant

I am posting since I have noticed an issue about a day ago where Google Maps removed about 30 or so of my newest reviews. The interesting part was that the only reviews they removed were the ones I made that included photos, and the photos are still posted and visible. Has this happened to anyone else? I have created upwards of 2,300 reviews and have worked very hard to make the community a better place. I feel like my reviews positively help my community and I actively seek restaurants that lack recognition. To see them removed is wildly disappointing.

I am always asked the questions, why do you care so much? Do you get paid? What is the benefit? All bad questions. Google Maps has became a hobby of mine and has been for the last 6 years. It is something that I view as healthy and motivating. It motivates me to push out of my comfort zone and to try new things or new experiences. It is rewarding, fun and light.

The past year, Google Maps has made a lot of changes, most of which are flat out bad. It is hard to continue to pour so much energy and time building up my community with a tool that hundreds of millions of people utilize only for things to be wiped away without notice. I hope these things can be resolved, or a least looked into. I have made 118,662 contributions, which is amongst the most I have ever seen and yet my reviews are constantly being shadow banned or removed.

Can any please provide some insight or at least some support

3 Likes

Same thing happened to me. Yesterday I had 2600+ and today I lost 450 reviews. Same as you I work hard to improve adding literally 100s of new places, photos of menus, updating times, removing incorrect Google locations, etc.
Wonder if it’s worth it now.

2 Likes

There may be several reasons why comments are removed from the page. In most cases, prohibited or restricted content that is included in the comments can be removed as a result of the review. If there are deleted comments as a result of a rule violation, they will not be reactivated.

My collective comment was removed the first time before. My comments that were removed en masse were my comments that were constantly complained about. Of course, there are those who make malicious comments, but there are also those who comment because they received really bad service from a business.