How good of a Local Guide are you?

[MortenCopenhagen]

Hi, guys,

The local guides program is built on gamification with lots of numbers and statistics. It seems that most local guides are very much aware of their level and happily mention (or brag about) their achievements. And all the numbers keep us motivated for sure.

But the numbers also allow us to dig a bit deeper to evaluate and understand our performance as a local guide in less well-known ways. This is what I would like to share today.

Warning: If you enjoy your status as a top-performing local guide as always emphasized in the flood of praising emails we get from Google Maps, then do not proceed reading… You might learn something less flattering about your performance as a local if you continue reading and do the calculations outlined below

You may have heard that Google makes some photos and reviews private if they overstep the guidelines that are honestly difficult to find, read, and understand. Google does not inform us when a review or photo is marked private (even though this could be a fantastic learning instrument). Private photos and reviews show up in our Contribution lists as if nothing was wrong.

So if you are still reading this (thanks, buddy), I will now explain how to calculate how many of your photos and reviews are flagged private. It takes a bit of work, and unfortunately, this method will not tell you which photos and which reviews are private.

This little tutorial requires you to use a Desktop computer.

(Please note, the steps below was updated on May 16th to also include the count of videos in the private photo count as kindly explained by @C_T in this reply).

Step 1 Open your Google Maps profile page in an incognito tab.

An easy way to do this is to go to your connect profile page (Click the Profile Circle, then click your name in blue at the top).

Here you right-click on “View Google Maps profile” and select “Open Link in a new Private/Incognito Window/Tab”.

Now you are in an incognito window where Google does not know who you are. And hence will show you the number of public reviews and the number of public photos. Now it’s getting interesting.

Step 2 Now click on the REVIEWS tab and then click on your photo to also open the blue pop-up Contributions window. It should look like this:

Now find the count of reviews in two places. In my case the numbers 539 in the blue pop-up window and 527 in the panel to the left. 539-527 = 12. That is the number of reviews that are currently made private.

Likewise, you can check if all your ratings are public. Since I only make proper reviews and not just ratings my number of ratings is ZERO (which I’m proud of!).

STEP 3 Then you close the Blue pop-up window and select the PHOTOS tab in the left panel. And reopen the blue pop-up window by clicking the profile photo. It should look like this:

First, locate the private number of photos and videos om the right-hand side. In this example 10.980 + 45 = 11.025 pics+videos. Next, locate the public number of pics + videos. In this example 10.821. The number of hidden pics + videos is 11.025 minus 10.821 = 204 hidden pics+videos. That is (204 * 100% / 11.025) = 1.9% of my photos and videos.

In conclusion:

2.2% hidden reviews (12 out of 539 private reviews).

0% hidden star-only-ratings (0 out of 0 private ratings).

1.9% hidden photos/videos (204 of 11.025 private photos/videos).

On average 9059 views per public photo/video (98.030.953 / 10.821).

I have tried to find and remove the private photos, but finding them is practically impossible. You will spend hours scrolling. So it is not worth the effort before Google provides us with better tools for this.

I can do some cleaning and remove private reviews. I think I know which ones it might be since I cleaned up only a few months back.

If you dare and care to calculate your performance in terms of:

% hidden reviews (XX out of YY reviews).

% hidden star-only-ratings (XX out of YY ratings).

% hidden photos/videos (XX out of YY private photos/videos).

On average ZZ views per public photo/video. (total views / public photos/videos)

And share them in a comment below we could have fun and discuss if this is useful in any way. I think these figures indicate the quality rather than the number of our contributions. Would you agree?

Before closing this rather long post, I want also to share how you can find the same figures on other public profiles on Google Maps. The only difference is that you don’t need to use incognito to see the public figures.

This anonymous level 7 local guide has 136 - 112 = 24 (17.6%) hidden reviews.

And 473 - 249 = 224 (47%) hidden Star-only-Ratings under his belt.

And he has only 418 + 1 - 415 = 4 hidden photos. And his average view count per photo is 268 views per pic.

In conclusion he has:

17.6% hidden reviews (24 out of 136 reviews).

47% hidden ratings (224 out of 473 ratings).

0.95% hidden photos/videos (4 out of 419 private photos/videos).

On average 268 views per public photo/video. (111.102 / 415)

I hope some of you enjoyed this super nerdy and somewhat silly tutorial.

Looking forward to reading your comments.

Cheers

MortenCopenhagen

PS if you want to find your public stats on a mobile @C_T kindly share thesesteps.

[VinayKrishna]

Hi @MortenCopenhagen

This is what from my side.

• % of Hidden Review= 0 out of 82.
• % of Hidden Ratings = 0 out of 23.
• % of Hidden Photos= 1.81% ( 6 out of 331)
• Average View= 422

I guess m not a great local guide at all, at least at this moment of time.

[KishorMali]

@MortenCopenhagen

Intresting Article.

The way you present, it’s the most important.

I will don’t think about becoming great local guide.

I am Simple local guide.

And I like this.

[OliverKIWI]

Thank you for this fun and insightful exploration in data @MortenCopenhagen

• % of Hidden Review= 0 out of 847.
• % of Hidden Ratings = 0 out of 21.
• % of Hidden Photos= 2.99% ( 176 out of 5878)
• Average View= 6435 (total view 36,696,790)

Will need to delete some photos then.

[Emmik20]

Thanks for sharing the technique @MortenCopenhagen . It is helpful and would really be useful in access how I am faring on Google map.

[Irfan_dPriyanto]

Great explanation, @MortenCopenhagen !

Show my ratio:

1. Hidden reviews 4,5 % ( 91/2101 )

2. Hidden photos 1,6 % ( 102/6563 )

3. Hidden ratings 7,9 % ( 16/205 ), still big

4. Average views per photo 1024,8 ( 6608006/6448 with LG assistant version )

[MortenCopenhagen]

Hi @Irfan_dPriyanto

Thanks for your reply and fine stats. I like how you have added the (xx/yy). It gives an even better picture. Although 1024.8 could be rounded up to 1025. Hi hi!

Cheers

[AdamGT]

Interesting post @MortenCopenhagen . A some questions for you, You said that you have tried to find and remove the private photos, but finding them is practically impossible… I cleaned up only a few months back:

1. So you scrolled through your photos and found and cleaned some but how did you recognise that a photo was private?
2. Given that photos are attached to reviews, does it follow that if a review is private then the photos on the review will be private as well?
3. If so then if you find a private review does it follow that you have found a set of private photos?
4. Do private photos/reviews have views?

[MortenCopenhagen]

Hi @AdamGT

Great questions.

With 11000 photos it is a huge physical challenge to scroll back to find my earliest photos on Google Maps. Yesterday I gave it a new shot but after scrolling constantly for 20 minutes I somehow fell out and had to start all over. But a guy on Facebook (Remus Bogza) figured out that if you succeed in scrolling all the way down you can move forward and remove photos one by one without dropping out. Removing poor quality and duplicates and the same pic posted to more than one place are easy to spot. The view count is probably also a pretty good indicator for which pics ere made private. But there is not really good and reliable method to identify them.

Regarding how to figure out which ones are private @C_T has published this recipe for finding which of your reviews are private. To me, it’s pretty complicated. So please see C_T method. Figuring out which photos are private I don’t have a good method. You can of cause always compare the public and your private lists of contributions, but my brain is not designed to spot what is missing on lists with 11000 photos.

In my experience photos uploaded with a review are not different from any other photos. They are not made private just because the review is made private.

Sorry I could not help you better.

Cheers

Morten

[C_T]

Hello @AdamGT

Finding private reviews is somewhat easier.
If you follow the discussion in my article, you will find a mention of an easier method of using a web-based utility for text comparison.
Even private photos have a view count. That’s the number the photo has grabbed before hiding from the public.
One of my contributions was a cover pic & collected 300K views. Now that is private even though many similar photos continue to be featured.
That’s why I suggested an idea yesterday for providing some mechanism to appeal against this arbitrary act of making a photo private.

[AdamGT]

Yes indeed @MortenCopenhagen with so many photos it is a huge physical challenge to scroll back to find one’s earliest photos on Google Maps. This is why I suggested the need for Additional sorting option on Contribution PHOTOS and Sorting of Contribution Photos. My understanding is that setting the order of records retrieved from a database table is simply using the ORDER BY ASC or ORDER BY DESC in the SELECT statement:

<strong>SELECT * FROM table_name ORDER BY column_name ASC|DESC</strong>

In our case we now have photos listed by views and date so for both these it should be simple to list photos as follows:

1. By views in ASC order
2. By views in DESC order
3. By date in ASC order
4. By date in DESC order

[AdamGT]

Interesting that one of your photos having 300K views was set to private @C_T . Do you have any thoughts as to why? I’ll check out your post on this.

[C_T]

I guess the owner pulled down that photo @AdamGT
That was a pic of an adjacent overflow room in the restaurant. That was for accommodating a sudden influx of a large number of customers.
The room was empty when I clicked. The owner must have commented “Not a photo or video of the place” and then the AI struck that down.
Interestingly, now I am seeing some photos of the same place but with a handful of customers occupying the tables!

[AdamGT]

In your case it was a photo @C_T but now I’m discovering reviews that are publicly visible at some stage (indicated by Likes) and subsequently disappear! You’ve seen the post Maps Review - Photos shown but review is missing!!! I just found a such review!!!

[Erna_LaBeau]

It was a nice article you published here. Thank you!

I dared myself to check how great a local guide I am?

My reviews turned the same, it meant nothing private. My photos has 0.018 in private.

@MortenCopenhagen. What do you think that caused Google to set them as private?

[MortenCopenhagen]

You are amazing, @Erna_LaBeau

There is an AI filter put in place block primarily spam. And I believe the filter continues to learn. In reviews svear words, anything remotely naughty, links, anything resembling spam will get your review made private. A good thing is that if you edit your review by removing parts of it, it will be reevaluated immediately. So you have a chance to try again and again until it goes public. And bingo. Then you know what triggered the filter. It’s a nice way and maybe the only way to learn

It can also be because the business owner who reported your review. In that case you can venture into a tug of war where you keep editing a tiny detail and it goes public again. Until the bu owner reports it again. Keep going or better : let it go. Forget about it.

For pictures there are many photos rules you can have violated and that the AI can recognize. But that’s the topic for another day.

Cheers

Morten

[Erna_LaBeau]

Thanks for the explanation. I learned something new everyday.

@MortenCopenhagen I am looking forward to your next intriguing subject matter to discuss.

[Anshu3]

Hi @MortenCopenhagen Thank you very much for such a great post. I have dared to check my contribution on my phone by following @C_T post (link provided by you in this post) but I think there is some problem because it is showing points as 5051 for contribution made by me at the same time it is showing that you have not posted any photos or reviews yet. I am not able to capture screenshot due to incognito tab otherwise I will share.

Please suggest further to get my stats.

Thank you.

[MortenCopenhagen]

Hi @Anshu3

Please clarify what you mean by

“at the same time it is showing that you have not posted any photos or reviews yet.”

Who are “you”?

Since you have set your maps profile to private I can’t really help you find your numbers. That could be your issue also. If private incognito can’t “see” it.

Cheers

[MortenCopenhagen]

@AdamGT

Could we add another sorting: Show photos marked private first?

Cheers