I recently noticed a new company that has accumulated 29 5 star reviews in less than 6 months in business. And now a Year into the business have another 25 5 star reviews. When you research the reviewers and the business owner it becomes clear that a good majority of the reviewers are “friends”. I have a large amount of research/documenation on this company to demonstrate the unusual patterns.
What caught my attention this week… A 5 star review that was posted over a year ago by a local guide was deleted and the exact same review posted again this week. I don’t know if this some how manipulates rankings? It can be demonstrated the local guide is a personal friend of the business owner, and if so is this type of manipulation allowed?
I have searched high and low for where this can be reported, and where I might be able to send the documentation. Any guidance would be appreciated.
I also apologize in advance if I have not posted correctly. This is my first time on the site and I was finding it a bit difficult to figure out where to post. 8 (
You can flag any reviews that you think violate our rules and policies directly in Google Maps by following the steps outlined in this article: Flag inappropriate reviews.
EDITED: As @ErmesT suggested, you can also report a Local Guide’s profile in Google Maps. Simply click on their name to open their profile page, navigate to the three dots in the top right corner, and select “Report profile.”
In this case, as you have proof of the Local Guide’s wrongful behavior, I’ll send you instructions via private message on how to report them. Thank you!
thank you ermest, I appreciate the quick feedback. I responded to the moderater first sorry. I suppose my question is how can I submit the documentation and address the guide who may acting against policies?
I stumbled across an account today as they had uploaded odd photos from what appeared to be a supermarket in Poland to a children’s clothes shop in the UK, a further check found lots of similar odd image uploads and random reviews but they’re a level 8 local guide.
In relation to your inquiry, please do feel free to proceed with the instructions sent to you privately. (you may also check as @ErmesT and @DeniGu suggested, with the direct method for reporting a Local Guide on Google Maps, should we think that they have infringed the rules and policies)
Please be noted that we as Local Guides should refrain from sharing information that could be interpreted as personal, for that reason I have removed the details in your reply.
Unfortunately because the link has been removed from my earlier post I can’t send you the information you’ve requested because I can’t recall the details of the user in question
I guess they live on to spam the same images over and over again until they reach level 10 but if I come across them again, wherever it was I last saw them, I’ll be sure to make note of their details.
I did report one of the obvious spam images using the usual mechanism but in my experience that rarely yields any results.
Thanks for replying and also for alerting me to the policy around sharing links in this way, I can assure you there was no malice behind it, just a desire to keep quality levels up
It is much appreciated that you have reached out immediately when seeing such irregularities (for further cases, you may indeed proceed as a mentioned so far) !
