I have written hundreds of reviews and comments on Google Maps over the past seven years since joining the Local Guides program, but after joining this forum, I discovered that many of those reviews were incorrect or not up to standard.
Can I now access those reviews to edit or delete the incorrect ones?
@ibn_hosin in addition to the correct responses above:
You asked “… can I access …”: The easiest way (in my opinion) is to use the desktop: My Contributions → Reviews. Unfortunately, you need to scroll down (back in time) until you find a certain review. On the mobile, you can do the same. For a specific place listing, you can open the pin and find your review on top of the others, with either a button “Edit” below or in the menu on the upper right.
When editing, I believe it is good habit to keep the original text and add a new paragraph starting with something similar to “Update as of May 2024”
When you edit a review, Google assumes you did visit the place again just now, which sometimes can have some surprising side effects. In one case the owner notified me that the prizes on the menu list are no longer valid - in that case, I removed the attached photo.
P.S. I just noticed, only 45 out of your 1,750 reviews went public! I good reason, to do something.
Unfortunately, some of the reviews I wrote are no longer available, and I was surprised that some of them were not published and were marked as archived
A review, photo or video is not published, if the SPAM filter decides to “hide” it. This can happen for many reasons, like not obeying the rules or simply it is considered as possible SPAM. @MortenCopenhagen did write a series of articles on how to detect and avoid this happening. Here is one of those: Hidden Reviews? Read this
@ibn_hosin vice versa, I did not understand, when you said “… were marked as archived”.
From my experience and understanding other discussions here, when a review is hidden i.e. not published, the author can still see and edit or delete it. But I have no idea, where you saw “archived” and what it means.
Here in this Connect forum, “archived” means, only admins can see a post or comment, not even the creator, but I don’t know, what it means in Google Maps.
I reviewed the guide article you referred to, written by dear @MortenCopenhagen , and I must admit I felt a lot of frustration due to the complexities that Google is now imposing on publishing reviews, especially since we are doing this work voluntarily and as a service to people. Despite this, I will try to make my comments and reviews more accurate and objective from now on Best regards to you and all the colleagues in the forum
No reason to be frustrated @ibn_hosin Just take it, as it is. The fight against SPAM und - much more importantly - fake information is very important for any media allowing to publish something and in all our interest. We all just should try to understand the system.
I wrote and published reviews, then closed the app. After a while, when I revisit the same place, I find that they weren’t published and that no one saw them except me. Next to them, it’s written in red “Archived.” So, I republish them again.
@ibn_hosin reg "Next to them, it’s written in red “Archived.” "
Never happened to me and I don’t remember having read about, but the “red” gives me the impression it is more serious than just hidden and “republish them again” with exactly the same content might be the wrong reaction and even make it worse.
I’m sure @ErmesT either can tell you more or refer to somebody who may be able to help.
I was just coming to write the same question, @WilfriedB , and you anticipated me of a few seconds.
@ibn_hosin , can you provide a screenshot showing an “Archived” review? Where the “archived” reviews related to some place in the European Union?
Let me add a note, @ibn_hosin . Obviously we cannot comment about what we don’t see, so I can’t say anything about your 1705 hidden reviews and your 2779 hidden photos, but of course I can comment on what I see, and for sure I need to inform you: there are so many violations in your visible photos that I can imagine this is for you the normal way to post. Since a review can be blocked either because the AI ​​finds the content inappropriate or because it finds a photo or video attached to the review inappropriate, I also wanted to look at the photos.
The amount of photos (considering only the few that we can see) that violate the rules is enormous. Photos copied from the web, redundant photos, dozens and dozens of photos that instead of showing a place show, in a repetitive way, an event that takes place within the place. Photos that may make sense to the person who took them but are perfectly useless to a Google Maps user.
This one contains two stolen photos too, clearly visible on a Desktop computer due to the low resolution.
Of course you can appeal for the team to check your profile (please read An update on how we moderate Google Maps reviews to find the appeal form) but, considering what I said above, you have an high possibility to have more review removed, and maybe a permanent ban, with what we can see in the profile. My suggestion is to check the rules and deeply review your contributions, removing everything against the rules.
Good luck
Honestly I think that you should deeply check the rules
Well, @ibn_hosin , I wish you the best, but be aware that “pay attention to and avoid in the future” may not be enough, because you could not have a “future” without fixing the ongoing issue. Do you think 1705 hidden reviews and 2779 hidden photos are not raising a warning in some Google’s office.
Honestly I’ve seen [former] Local Guides removed from the program with less violations.
In any case the choice is your own only, I can only inform you about that, and I did it already.
@ErmesT based on his original question “Can I now access those reviews to edit or delete the incorrect ones?” I am asking myself, what can he do now?
I still don’t know what exactly an archived review is and I have the impression, unlike hidden reviews or media, the creator cannot even edit or delete them anymore. What do you think?
BTW, I just checked his profile and it is empty. Either set private or already banned by Google …?
You can always edit an hidden review, @WilfriedB . In fact this is what maps suggests to do. As you can read in Flag and fix inappropriate content "If a review you wrote has been flagged and removed, you can fix it yourself. Edit your review to follow Google review policies — for example, you might remove a phone number or URL from the review. Your review will be automatically republished