Identifying Unpublished Reviews

Google Maps tips & tricks
1

I’ve seen several posts in this community explaining how to find the number of unpublished Google Maps reviews.

In my case, I’ve written 850 reviews, of which 815 are public, meaning I currently have 35 unpublished reviews.

While scrolling through my contributed reviews on my iPhone, I noticed three types of reviews that seem to stand out:

1. Reviews clearly marked by Google as unpublished

I have 4 of these. For example:

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2. Reviews with no POI name

I assume these are reviews for places that existed when I posted them but were later removed from Google Maps. Since the POI no longer exists, I’m counting these as unpublished, but I am not sure.

I have 8 reviews like this. For example:

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3. Reviews with zero views

A review with 0 views may indicate that it is unpublished, although it’s not definitive.

I have 22 reviews with zero views, and after checking them individually, it appears that roughly half are actually unpublished. In some cases, however, I couldn’t find a practical way to determine their status.

I have two questions for the community:

  1. Does anyone know of an easier way to identify unpublished reviews, or at least narrow down the best candidates to check?
  2. Once I’ve identified an unpublished review, is it better to delete it (since it isn’t helping anyone), or leave it untouched and avoid interfering with Google’s algorithms?

Thanks

Gaby

2

Hi! Maybe the airport review was not published because of the many (43) photos it has. I’ve read here that two or three photos in a review is enough (the rest can be added as photos to the profile of the place but independent of the review)

Good luck

3

Hello @Gaby7,

regarding

Unfortunately, there is no easy way according my knowledge. The only way, which was described here before, requires to use two browser sessions (or two smartphones), one session logged in with you Google profile, the other one logged in with a different profile: e.g. if you have an old profile or a friend’s or family member. Then you to scroll through both in parallel and what you cannot see in the other’s session is hidden.

It depends. In case of you first example, when it says “unfortunately, we’re not able to publish his content at this time.” all reviews to that place are blocked and that might be temporary only. So, do not delete it.

For Reviews with no POI name, you assumption is correct the place did exist in the past. If this was a business, you might want to check, whether they really closed or changed ownership. In that case, you might delete it to cleanup your account, but I don’t think it disturbs anybody, if you keep this “ghost review”.

But there is a different case:
Many times, it was noticed by other local guides including myself that historical monuments, which still exist in reality, suddenly disappeared - possibly deleted accidentally. In several cases, I was able to submit an appeal and after several weeks the listing and all reviews and media are reinstated. Use this form and if accepted, you did something good for the community.

If any of the above cases don’t apply, very likely the SPAM filter did reject only your review. If there are photos or videos attached and only one was rejected, the entire review including all other attached media to it will be hidden. As a first step, I suggest to edit the review without changing text, but remove all attached media to see, whether text-only ist accepted.

If the text of your review was rejected and you sure, you did obey all rules, an aappeal might be helpful too.

In some countries, such as Germany, owners of the business can threaten Google to sue them for defamation. In that case, Google hides the review immediately but also sends you a mail with the information to oppose against. But that is completely different story, you might never experience in your country.

4

@WilfriedB Many thanks for your detailed reply !!!