I recently came across a fascinating blog post of the Google Maps blog and thought it would be of interest to all local guides, as it celebrates the impact and value of the contributions we all make.
Without reposting the entire post (which can be read in full here), some of the key take-aways include:
- Everyday people submit more than 20 million contributions to Google Maps, from reviews and ratings to photos, answers to other users’ questions, address updates and more (Wow!!!)
- Thanks to contributions from the global Google Maps community, we’ve been able to add accessibility information, like wheelchair-friendly entrances and restrooms, for more than 50 million places around the planet (Amazing!)
- One of our most passionate groups of contributors is the 120 million Local Guides across 24,000 cities and towns who are committed to making information about their communities on Google Maps more helpful and accurate. (High-five guys!)
Another theme this post dives in to is how the Google Maps team employee trained operators and analysts, as well as machine learning models to tackle an issue I know drives many Local Guides mad, policy-violating content!
Specifically in 2019 alone the team had:
- Removed more than 75 million policy-violating reviews and 4 million fake business profiles
- Took down more than 580,000 reviews and 258,000 business profiles that were reported directly
- Reviewed and removed more than 10 million photos and 3 million videos that violated content policies
- Disabled more than 475,000 user accounts
I really believe these facts will warm the hearts of the many hard-working Local Guides that are quite vocal about such issues, and give them confidence that something is actively being done to remove policy violating content and accounts.
I highly recommended checking out the full post: https://www.blog.google/products/maps/google-maps-101-how-contributed-content-makes-maps-helpful/
