My comments and photos are not being published publicly recently. My photos are in pending state for days and people can’t see my comments. I’m a level 6 local guide. What might be causing this?
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Hello @burkito ,
I can see your reviews and photos posted a week ago on map.
One of the examples is here. Not sure what you are referring by saying 'people can’t see my comments’.
Hi @burkito
I can confirm from your public profile that you have added 62 reviews and only 54 of them are 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 latest post called 4 Tips on writing better reviews. And this post by ErmesT explains in more details why Google is hiding 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for contributions not visible on Google Maps if you believe that some of your contributions have been wrongfully unpublished.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
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Hi @MortenCopenhagen @and @Kumaarsantosh ,
Thank you for your fast replies. @Kumaarsantosh it’s normal that you can’t see ‘the hidden posts & photos’. I used the word recently to refer only the some of recent reviews. After the review you mentioned, I added photos to another venue but they are in “upload is pending” state for days. From @MortenCopenhagen 's posts, I can assure that 11 of my photos are hidden which I already knew by the view counts and pending warnings on some of them. I wish I could find a way to show that 2 reviews which are insistently not being published publicly. One of them is a negative criticism. In that review, I tried expressing what I have observed in many different words in case spam filter believes that I somehow insult or swear. I even changed the length of the review and cancelled attaching photo to it in case it somehow affects the publication. Nothing worked, so I gave up forcing it to make public totally. The other review which is the reason why I opened this discussinon is about pending photos. It was a positive review which was written 6 months ago. I made new edits and added photos. Unfortunately, as I stated earlier, photos are in pending state for days and I don’t think it’ll be fixed unless I locate the problem and take action. I checked all the links you referred to @MortenCopenhagen and I don’t believe I’m violating any of them. Learning the reason will be very helpful for my future reviews.
You can share the review texts in the replies below if you want someone to take a look. But keep in mind that the spam filter is focused not only on the specific content of each contribution. It also considers patterns in your overall actions on Maps. So you may be unable to identify the cause inside a particular review or photo. And keep in mind that Google started moderating reviews and photos together. So a review might be hidden because one of the photos might violate the guidelines.
Cheers
Morten
Thanks for the suggestions.I found them quite useful indeed. My history is not enabled but I’m sure it is collecting that for spam filtering as you mentioned. It’s really a tedious work to find out the root cause of the problem in this way. I wish the automatic spam filtering would share why it’s not being published at least in a concise way if not thoroughly. You can see the english translation of my review’s final -shortest- version, which is consistently not published publicly. I tried to delete words that may be interpreted as violent. Nothing helped. Hit me up if you find something obtrusive. It’s a negative criticism -as I mentioned- so I cannot filter all the “bad” words right, otherwise what’s the meaning of sharing.
“If you want to wait, you can go. I waited on the terrace on the 3rd floor for 25 minutes for the second needle to arrive, and when it did not arrive at last, I got up. Don’t go up so many floors and pick up customers because you won’t be able to make it to the service. Of course, you cannot reach three floors with a single stove. The price is 100 TL. Finding a parking lot on the weekend is also a serious problem, there is no parking lot.”
Please also add the Maps link to the place you are trying to post this review to.
Maybe the translation is poor, but did you try removing the price? This often triggers the spam filter.
Also “Pick up customers” sounds borderline naughty to me.
Try using https://quillbot.com/ to improve your language.
A final test could be to have the cleanest version of your text posted from a friend’s account. If this goes public you know that the issue is related to your account and other actions of yours and is not to be found inside the text.
Cheers
Morten
Hi @MortenCopenhagen ,
The place where my photos stuck in pending state: https://maps.app.goo.gl/P4BgtK8uy65gErnFA
The place where my review is (w/ or w/o photo) not publicly published https://maps.app.goo.gl/ChNFpWFL36APt4bTA
I almost always share price information on my reviews and haven’t had any issue with it so far. The translation is not good but I rephrased the term you mentioned in the original language. Indeed, I came up with posting my review on a friend’s account but then thought that, it may look more suspecious and our accounts may be blacklisted if there’s any such thing in the algorithm.
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Thanks for the links. No issues there.
Good to know that prices in your review texts are not causing problems. Thanks.
The purpose of trying to post the latest review text without images from a friends account was solely to test if it the trigger is in the text or generally associated with your account. After the test, I would immediately remove the test review to protect both accounts. It was just to help us understand if it is worth to keep looking for the trigger inside the review text.
I can not guarantee there will not be consequences. You could try from a sacrificial account.
All the Best
Morten
Hi @burkito ,
Removing photos from the reviews work mostly for getting the reviews public. Since in your case even removing the photos are not helping in getting your review public then as suggested by @MortenCopenhagen , please fill the form Account Investigation for contributions not visible on Google Maps for re-instating your reviews. It will take some time and if found within the the the review guidelines it will get published.
Also, try to post your review for some other POI which you have visited/experienced and see whether that review is getting public or not? At times for some specific POI, review does not get public in real time. So, possibly that could be one of the reasons why your review got stuck for https://maps.app.goo.gl/ChNFpWFL36APt4bTA . I have experienced this couple of times.
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