Half my new reviews are blocked, submitted review form but no action

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:

Have I written anything offensive here?

A few more reviews that are blocked are below. Can anyone enlighten me if I have written the reviews wrongly?

I have submitted the Google form for review but my reviews remain blocked from public view.

Can anyone help? Maybe @MortenCopenhagen @DeniGu @AngieYC

Many thanks in advance. Cheers!

6 Likes

I’m having the same issue.

1 Like

Hi @sulimc1962

I can confirm from your public profile that you have added 750 reviews and 732 of them are public. So why do you think 50 percent are hidden?

When did you submit the hidden contributions form?

Keep in mind that hidden reviews could indicate violations not necessarily related to reviews.

Your reviews look great…You may want to check your photos for redundancy.

Cheers
Morten

1 Like

When did you fill in the form? @sulimc1962

Hi @MortenCopenhagen ,

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.

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Hi @waza28

I submitted the form several times, including mid November, end November and today.

Thanks.

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I have also filled the form in November and still waiting.
@sulimc1962

As you can see there are many of us who are facing the same issue so there will be a delay in reviews being published.

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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?

2 Likes

Hi @sulimc1962

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?

Review guidelines:
Prohibited and Restricted Content
Format Specific Criteria (See under Text Reviews and Captions)

Read about typical review guideline violations here.

If you want to identify your hidden reviews please see this post.

If lost, feel free to share a few hidden reviews (text and links) below.

Best of luck
Morten

@sulimc1962

Are you associated with any businesses on Google Maps? Have you been liking your own reviews?

Also, please check https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/General-Discussion/Common-Review-Violations/m-p/2901627/highlight/true#M1097244

Cheers

Morten

Thanks for helping @MortenCopenhagen

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.

Cheers!

1 Like

Hi @MortenCopenhagen

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.

Cheers!

2 Likes

@sulimc1962

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.

Please take a moment to check this: https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/General-Discussion/How-to-Get-In-and-Out-of-Trouble-The-Main-post/m-p/2901569/highlight/true#M1097227

Are you somehow associated with a business?

Cheers

Morten

Hi @MortenCopenhagen

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.

Cheers!

2 Likes

@sulimc1962

You would know if you were running or managing a business on Google Maps. You get a ton of emails if you manage a business on Google Maps.

Creating new businesses is not an issue.

You get the Maps links by tapping on the share buttons and copy the url. Then paste it together with a copy of your review text for that place.

The hard work is to identify the hidden reviews. Find 5 and maybe that will be enough to spot what could be wrong.

Cheers

Morten

Hi @MortenCopenhagen

I don’t get those emails, so that would mean I’m not likely to be managing a business on Google Maps.

Below are samples of places with my hidden reviews.

https://goo.gl/maps/3jWKd953JBG1EFCs9

My edit of this missing place was approved, but my review is hidden

https://goo.gl/maps/EdZ2wP2XqcRHLQH17

My edit of this missing place was approved, but my review is hidden:

https://goo.gl/maps/S3zgy7QWoBGfwurV6

https://goo.gl/maps/kTu8pDRto43BUQdL9

https://goo.gl/maps/okGu6fZE335C5z3R6

https://goo.gl/maps/UdUU1mMEyvybwLHA9

https://goo.gl/maps/ghWopa4GUtouKQw27

Any help and guidance is much appreciated.

Cheers!

@sulimc1962

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.

Try what I proposed below and report back.

Cheers

Morten

1 Like

Hi @MortenCopenhagen

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.

Cheers!

2 Likes

Thanks for testing, @sulimc1962

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.

Best of luck

Morten

1 Like

Hi,

I have the same issue, all my comments (with photo or without photo, with text or without text…) are rejected.

I also got rejected olds comments, one of them is a comment from 3 years ago.

I check on Tweeter and lot of people are in the same situation, so it means there is realy a problem with AI Google at this time.

I hope they are working to find a solution from this issue.

1 Like