I find that half my new reviews are blocked from public view and I submitted the review form but no action so far. I always post genuine reviews of places I have visited in person and the photos are also taken on my own mobile phone. I want to support local food businesses whom I find deserving of a good review due to their great food, but am frustrated by all this blocking. Even when my edit is approved by Google for place creation, my review of the place is blocked. The example is for Cheng Kee Char Kway Teow:
My reviews were previously cleared by Google admin. These are my new reviews from start of November till now where I found almost every other review blocked. I submitted the form several times, including mid November, end November and today. I make sure my photos are not repeated, are clear (not blurry) and have cut down on the number posted per review unless the place is very interesting. I also post menu photos by using Add Menu Photos, not together with the main review. It is taking very long to clear my reviews if indeed there is nothing wrong with what I wrote.
Not excited about adding more reviews when this happens. Thanks.
Well, today I was at my computer and wanted to compare my published and unpublished reviews by opening 2 browsers, one signed in and the other incognito.
As I was browsing the photos I posted on an unpublished review, I discovered that some were not appearing and showing street view instead. This happened in the signed in browser. My conclusion is that it must be a blocked photo which is blocking the review, since it had some had telephone numbers on them. So I deleted the photo and this caused that review to become unblocked! Mind you, this photo was of the shopfront and the owners had put phone numbers there. So how do you share the shopfront when AI bans phone numbers? Don’t ask me to edit the photo and remove the numbers; that’s being silly! So now people who want to visit that place will be deprived of a shopfront photo.
I tried it with another review where a photo had some text on it and also showing street view when clicked, but upon deleting, the review remained blocked from public view. Another attempt was to delete a photo with people in it. I thought maybe the AI didn’t like having people’s faces shown but it didn’t re-instate the review. Look, it is impossible not to include people’s faces in photos of popular places like tourist attractions or restaurants. What do we have to do, visit them when they have closed so that there are no people in the photos? Or tell the people, “Hey folks, please turn your faces away; I’m taking photos for Google Maps reviews, and the AI doesn’t like to see your faces!”
This is so incredibly frustrating! So what else do we have to do to get the reviews unblocked when the form has been submitted and nothing has changed after 3 weeks?
Your conclusions that text and faces will cause hidden photos and reviews is probably not the whole story. Text in photos is not a problem as long as the text is not superimposed (added later).
Faces are also not completely banned. But certainly should be avoided if possible. You can also choose to blur the faces.
You have 760 - 743 hidden reviews and your photos look amazing.
If 3 weeks have passed since you submitted the hidden contributions form, the next step is to critically study the guidelines and your hidden reviews to figure out what could be the problem.
How many hidden reviews did you have before you submitted the form?
I have gone through the guidelines so many times and I am pretty sure I am not in violation for any of my reviews. I have 17 hidden reviews and just submitted the form again today. It’s about the same number as a few weeks ago since many of the hidden reviews were from my recent trip to Australia. Previously, when I had submitted the form, all of my hidden reviews were unhidden; that was sometime in early November 2022. I have not changed the way I write or post photos since then and am quite keen to have these 17 hidden reviews made public as there are very interesting places that I visited in those reviews.
Anyway, no choice but to wait. It would be a great help if Google admins actually tell us what went wrong with particular reviews so that we can correct it. This is becoming one big waiting and guessing game.
No, I do not own/taken ownership of any businesses on Google Maps, although I often create new places for businesses I come across that are not already on Maps. Most of my edits get approved, but the funny thing is that when I write a review of the newly created place, my review is hidden. And I have never liked any of my own reviews. I don’t have that habit even on Facebook where some of my friends like their own posts; seems so odd to do that!
Fingers crossed some action will be taken on my remaining 17 hidden reviews. If only they would give us a clue, I would be happy to edit text and/or remove photos to make the reviews unhidden.
Between the lines you explained that the firm actually worked in the past. Thanks.
Your wish to have a Googler tell you what the problem is is not realistic (although it would be fair and reasonable). I have never seen a Googler provide such help.
I’m afraid you need to do the hard work of identifying which reviews got hidden.
If this does not help you identify the potential violation(s), feel free to share the Maps links and your review texts below and maybe I can help you spot the problem.
It would be wonderful to get your help. Did you mean to have the Google Maps link of a place I am reviewing followed by the text? Also, how do I find out if I am associated with a business? Maybe some missing place I added was mistakenly set with me as the owner? For sure, I am not running any business for the places I am reviewing or creating; it’s all public service.
This is strange. I don’t see any obvious violations in any of your review texts.
There has been some delay reported recently, so reviews of newly created places are not going public immediately. So I hesitate to conclude anything from reviews uploaded only 4 hours ago. Please check in a couple of days if your reviews went public.
When we create a new place I call that an Addition and not an Edit. I figured it out.
I would suggest you make a test. Back up your hidden review text to one place you reviewed 4 weeks ago. Preferably one with only a few or a single photo. Then delete the review. Check that it is removed. Then make a star-only rating and let me know if it goes public or not. This will reveal if the system has banned you from reviewing that particular place. Let me know what you find. If the rating goes public we need to look closer at your review text. The try adding it sentence by sentence and check for each sentence if the review remains public.
Three other concerns / suggestions you could test:
Try only adding a single photo or no photos when reviewing a place. If successful you can try adding more photos later.
Your reviews are generally long. Please test if reviews with a single sentence are more likely to go public.
Looking at your photos, some are redundant. Just changing the angle a bit could trigger the spam filter.
The problem is, if your reviews are hidden for a not-review related issue, then it will be very hard to figure out what is going on.
Thanks and I tried what you suggested on my Android Maps app. I deleted a review then created it again with one photo and a single sentence and it was published.
I then edited the review and changed it back to my original 3 sentences of text and it was immediately unpublished.
I changed back to a single sentence and it was published again. I didn’t dare add photos by editing the review, so I added photos directly to the place.
I repeated the above for a few other places, all but one got published. If Maps AI prefers single sentence reviews, why do they give extra 10 points for detailed review? Doesn’t it mean they want a detailed review? Would not a detailed review of a few sentences be better to describe our experience. How unfortunate that we are forced to compress our experience of a place to a single sentence.
I am seriously thinking of taking a break from Maps reviews due to all this trouble and frustration. Even this reply was filtered and I had to edit and replace words to say what I wanted to convey. Amazing.
You jumped to conclusions. It is not the solution to leave one-word reviews only.
For the one review that did not go public when reduced to the first sentence, please try leaving only the second sentence. Maybe the wording triggering the spam filter is not in the first sentence.
For the others keep adding the next sentences one by one while checking if it gets hidden. This way you will learn which sentence contains the triggering words. Also, when you know which sentence is the problem, you should try replacing/rewording the sentence until it goes public. This way you will learn what terms and wordings you need to avoid to not trigger the spam filter.