I have been reviewing places on Google for well over a decade. Using this for work to save where I visit, making my own maps etc. I work in hospitality and like to leave nice reviews after good experiences. I only recently found out about the Google Local guide system of points and levels. I realised I could contribute much more content. So I started uploading pictures and leaving more reviews for places - I know well but had not previously reviewed to date. OK maybe I was a bit click happy but the system encouraged me. Not just with points, but prompting me to contribute more photos it linked to venues or asking me to add reviews or answer questions. I did a lot of work the past few weeks, and went from levek 6 ton8 fast… but all with personalised genuine content, reviews, photos etc. Comments - I was working through the list of venues google knows I visited from my location data. And I didnt leave reviews for everywhere only places I had genuine experiences of (a lot as its my job to go to veneus and experience hospitality as a seller of drinks not a professional reviewer - i also left poor reviews if needed). Now some reviews have been flagged as fake content by I assume the algorithm. I am really upset. I have lost badges I worked over a decade for. My appeals have been automatically rejected. What can I do? I haven’t monetised anything or broken any rules. This is all genuine reviews from my years in hospitality. Please help. I feel like I have been humiliated in the community with these reviews being removed. How can I get someone real to review my content who will obviously see it is genuine?
Hi @KateONeil
Sometimes the AI filter is overly sensitive, but step one is always to reflect on possible guideline violations.
You mentioned to be a hospitality/drinks professional both above and in your Maps profile text. This could be part of the problem if you review (competitors) from a professional viewpoint. Check conflict of interest in the guidelines.
Your profile is set to restricted. If you want help to spot what else could be the cause, you need to change your privacy setting as explained here temporarily. It can also be done from a Desktop computer. Goto Your contributions, then Profile settings, then toggle Restricted profile.
After fixing issues there is a form to use to get a manual check by a human.
Cheers
Morten
Thank you for the time to review this. I only restricted our profile moments ago because I was embarrassed about reviews being removed…I have unrestricted this again.
We do not have any conflict of interest we are part of the wider hospitality community but aren’t competitors of venues and don’t stand to benefit from good reviews. I can only imagine this has been sparked by my recent enthusiasm - that doesn’t however make it fake - and I am worried everything will be deleted that I rely on to store everywhere I visit.
It would be very helpful if you would always use the tagging tool when replying to someone here on Connect. Type @ followed by the username. Type slowly. Then we get an e-mail notification and you are more likely to get a prompt reply. Just hitting Reply does not ensure we get notified by email.
Thanks for the unrestricting.
I don’t think you are anywhere close to have your contributions deleted. Google very rarely go beyond hiding contributions but you can always see them while logged in.
Making a lot if reviews in short bursts can very well trigger the spamfilter.
Looking at your profile is not as helpful as I expected as I can’t see any of your reviews. They are all taken down currently.
To help you I might have been able to spot some violations to be fixed before filling the form mentioned at the end of the message.
Looking at your photos: Please be careful not to share images with recognizable faces.
Regarding reviewing places you visited in the past it could be an issue if it is a long time ago as things can obviously change.
The following is my general reply with relevant links to help you further.
I can confirm from your public profile that you have added 494 reviews and zero of them are currently public.
Google has automatic filters that hide your reviews so only you can see them. This can happen when some of your reviews violate the review guidelines.
Read about typical review guideline violations here. And please see my super short post called 4 Tips on writing better reviews.
If you are on a Desktop use this link to Count your hidden contributions. From a mobile device use this link.
If you want to identify which of your reviews are hidden check this post.
Please use the form called Account Investigation for contributions not visible on Google Maps if you believe that some of your contributions have been wrongfully unpublished. Keep in mind, it takes several weeks for the check to be done, and you will not be notified about the result, so I suggest you check the status of your reviews once a week or so.
Best of luck
Morten
Hello @KateONeil please let me add one point, I believe @MortenCopenhagen forgot:
Did you attach any photos or videos to your reviews? Not only the text of a review, but also the attached media is checked by the SPAM filter. If only a single photo is rejected, the entire review will be hidden too. In fact, for me, the very first step trying to make a hidden review public, is to remove all attached photos and if successful adding them one by one again.
Having done that without any success, it worked for me in the past, to save the entire review locally in a file and the remove half of the text and watch, if it becomes public - easiest on the desktop by pressing refresh repeatedly in a anonymous browser session for less than a minute.
However, I don’t remember having read any post here Connect, where all reviews of somebody were hidden. So, I would start with a very short one.
@MortenCopenhagen might also have some more suggestion, if you could share the screen shot of one of those hidden reviews. Possibly there is something (e.g. a special signature?) wrong with all of them …?
Good luck!