Hi Team/Local Guides,
Is anyone experiencing any issues when posting a review? It appears that Google has started using an automated system to check reviews, which is now causing me problems. Any videos/photos that I take of the particular business/object that I upload along with my review are being flagged for some odd reason.
Please advise!
You are correct that a new content moderation system is currently being implemented.
But I doubt this is your real problem. Even prior to rolling out the new moderation system, our contributions were often hidden for policy violations. The biggest difference is that before we were not informed about this.
I can confirm from your public profile that you have added 235 reviews and only 176 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.
You should check if you can appeal the hiding directly from your list of reviews and/or for the individual contributions. Please use the appeal option if it is available to you.
Otherwise, 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for contributions not visible on Google Maps if you believe that some of your contributions have been wrongfully unpublished.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
Thank you, Marten.
Hi @MortenCopenhagen - Good day. Please explain this. It’s just pictures of food. Nothing too crazy or complex, and the review is very short. So, I’m confused about why the automated system marked it as a violation.
I feel that with the new automated system now in place, it will make things harder for us guides and may deter us from continuing to review. Because everything gets marked as a violation, and only some of the reviews allow you to submit an appeal, which takes days to be reviewed by a human representative.
Please share your thoughts on this. Thank you!
My honest view is that the new moderation system is currently overly sensitive and unable to let legitimate contributions through. I very much share your concern that the moderating system will discourage and demotivate honest and genuine Local Guides.
So my best advice for now is to have patience. Hopefully, the moderation system will be trained and adjusted in 2024.
To answer your question more directly: I can not explain why the spam filter/moderation system is blocking legit contributions. Except that the system is faulty and untrained. Fingers crossed that Google will be able to get this under control.
Cheers
Morten
Hi @MortenCopenhagen - Your advice to have patience is sound, and let’s hope that Google can improve and train the system to be more accurate in 2024. It’s indeed a challenging situation, but together, we can hope for positive changes.
I hope you have a great day.
Hi @DwayneFootSteps ,
I see @MortenCopenhagen has answered all your queries.
I just want to let you know that I will change the topic of your post to How-tos to keep Connect organized. This is the place where you can ask questions, share tips and feedback about Connect and the Local Guides program.
I fully agree, Dwayne. Google doesn’t post almost any of my contributions since a couple of months. Also photos of the past (even with likes and/or comments of the owner) are under investigation. So, for all these accusations I send an object and after some time for almost all of them that is accepted. Very frustrating…
