I’ve been contributing to google maps for a couple of years and I have been pretty active. 500ish very detailed and thoughtful reviews, thousands of photo, thousands of questions answered. I’m sure others have done more, I’m just establishing that I’ve put in a fair share of time and effort into it.
Around Sept/August 2019, I lost a ton of Google guide points. Almost all of them were from “answers” e.g., “does the restaurant have wheelchair accessible parking?”. Randomly, maybe 8-9 thousand points were lost (same amount of answers given) around that timeframe without explanation.
So I read here in these forms a couple of months ago that you can contact google to see if your account has been penalized since that is one alleged way that points can be lost. I wrote a long message (can’t remember the link where I submitted it) but all I got back from Google was an email saying that my google guides account had not been suspended or penalized. It was maybe a one line automated email response from them and they didn’t address my other questions or concerns…like why where they lost, how can I get them back, etc.?
I used to submit tons of things to google maps, but since roughly ten thousand points just vanished for no good reason last summer and haven’t returned in the past six months despite my patience and attempts fix it myself, I am pretty disheartened. I’ve lost interest. I used to love providing Google contributions. But now I’m more apathetic about it because I wonder whether more points will simply a get removed again and therefore my credit/recognition taken away as well.
I’m not sure what to do. There doesn’t seem to a be a reliable tech support option for this. I would like to have this fixed and my points returned but I don’t even know where to start. Can anyone help? I’d like to start contributing more to google maps like I used to, but I’m reluctant to do so unless my account/points issues are resolved.
Obviously, it is also possible that, during an upgrade from happening a temporary misalignment of the database, which could cause temporary loss of points.
A feedback in more detail might help you figure out which one of these situations cause your decrease in points.
Please check the setting in Maps activity. If that is set to “Choose to delete automatically”, you will continue to lose points.
To reach the setting in the new user interface, please click on the profile icon, then settings, select Maps history & then scroll down to Web & App activity.
If you have not got the new UI, then click on the three lines (Hamburger icon) & do the needful.
I think I covered those questions already. Points lost were from “answers”. And, to my knowledge, I have not posted bad information or violated terms of use. In my post I mentioned already that Google emailed me to confirm that I had not commited any violations. So I do not believe those to be the cause of my issues.
As for more details, I have tried to be as clear as I can. If more details would be helpful, please clarify what specific ones I should provide.
I just checked that and it was set to save for three months and then delete automatically. I may have changed that around the summer when this happened. Hmm.
Is that how all this works? Unless I retain the information in my profile “forever” I will lose those “answers” points?
The minute I read your post @Psychguy1977 , I realized that what @C_T was saying is indeed the issue you are facing.
To answer your question: unfortunately… yes, with that setting you will continue to lose those ‘answer’ points. The points are really linked in the database to the entries on your activity timeline. So if those entries are deleted, the points associated with them are also removed. I don’t think they had local guides in mind when they came up with that change to how things work.
Urgh… While I’m glad you guys helped me figure it out, I think it’s totally unfair that the system works that way. It should have at least gave me a warning so I could have made an informed choice. It’s silly that if you, say, hypothetically, answered 50 thousand questions over 5 years that all of the points associated with them could be lost by the click of a privacy change. And it seems like either I give up privacy to keep points or sacrifice privacy to maintain points.
That’s just a bad system. I have changed the settings to keep forever with manual delete for now. I’ll have to think as to whether I want to keep it that way in the long run. All this has taken the wind outta my sails, so to speak, and demotivated me to continue with my past level of zeal.
Amongst my friendsI’m that “review guy”. As in… “Hey do you wanna take a picture of my meal for your review later?”. Whereas nowadays, they ask… “Why don’t you review things anymore?”.
Hopefully they address issues like this if they want to keep local guides motivated and contributing in the long run
Thanks for helping me figure this out guys. I never would have made the connection on my own. I’m pretty bummed out about the points being gone for good and the unfortunate way the system is set up.
Welcome to Connect, we are happy to have you here.
I am sorry for your points being reduced. I hope this won’t discourage you from contributing your great content to Google Maps and join the discussions here on Connect.
I see you have already managed your activity in My Activity as correctly suggested by @C_T .
Please be informed that I am going to mark his reply as a solution since it gives the full answer to your question.
