In the past few months, my reviews are almost systematically marked “not published”, and it’s impossible to know why.
I write restaurant reviews, and I only write about restaurants I like, so my reviews are always positive. Moreover, I try to go above and beyond by blurring any face appearing on my photos.
Still my reviews are almost systematically marked not published now. Worse, the “Appeal” link doesn’t appear. I tried a few times to create a support ticket, and it worked when support accepted to read my reviews, they cleared them without asking any modification,. Last time support just kept sending me the canned messages, which are not useful unfortunately, and my review was just blocked.
It seems there is a calibration problem with AI filters. If at least we could know which photo or where in the text is the problem, it would be helpful and it’s technically possible.
At the moment, it starts to become quite discouraging to try to post on Google Maps.
Hi @RestoWhim
Welcome to connect and thank you for asking.
In fact from your public profile I can see that 3 of your reviews and 3 of your photos are not published.
If you posted about places inside the in the EU (it seems you are in Paris) you also have an indication about the reason why your review isn’t posted and the action to take.
If your review isn’t posted due to the content of the review itself, you may have an option to submit an appeal. But in any case editing the text to make it compliant with the policies can be great.
If your review isn’t posted due to an attached media remove the media and post it again
As you said
I would like to inform you that a lot of your visible photos may be in violation of the policies about Superimposed text or graphics
I know that you seems to do this for helping the users, but in fact you are adding information that sometimes are useless and in other cases (dish names) in Google Maps have a specific feature exactly designed for this scope. For more details about this feature please read: Add dish names to dining photos
We can use as an example this review. In there you added 10 photos, all of them are screenshots. Here below couple of example.
7 of them are screenshots of dishes, with superimposed the name of the dish. Totally useless, and impossible to use for visually impaired people. A better option would be to add the real full resolution photo (better quality), to add them as a dish, to add the dish name in the menu when prompted, and maybe adding the name also in the caption, to make them accessible to visually impaired users.
3 of them are screenshots of the Location, again in low resolution, and with a totally useless text with the name of the address of the place. You posted the photos in Google Maps, inside a listing that is clearly showing the name of the address, so there is no need to add it in a superimposed text. Again, it would be better to have them in a better size.
The first question that would come in my mind looking at that contributions would be: Are the photos “original”?
I believe you should fix all of them, because filling an appeal for checking your profile may end in the unwanted result to have more and more contents removed
In addition I want to inform you that I moved your post in a more appropriate Category: Google Maps tips & tricks - Local Guides Connect.
For more information about categories and tags in connect please read:
Thanks for your detailed reply. I see a number of actionable points from your reply, especially:
Use photos, instead of video snapshots
Do not put legends on the photos
I don’t see something actionable in “But in any case editing the text to make it compliant with the policies can be great”, that is like the canned responses that I got from support multiple times.
I find also problematic that I only “may” have an option to submit appeal. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t, and there is no clear reason why.
Interestingly, I just got the right to submit an appeal for one of my reviews today, and for the first time, I saw more actionable details, at least in theory, on the problem with my review because the specific photos were shown (that’s helpful), though the reason was not: it said “redundantly submitted photos”, but that’s because the only option we are left with when reviews are rejected is to delete the review and resubmit; it seems that it then triggered a “redundant submission”. Hopefully the appeal will clear that there is no such redundancy.
About adding names of dishes on photos, yes, I know that there is a feature for that in Google Maps, but you are not factoring that if content creators want to submit some of the photos on several social media, they have to repeatedly do this every time, instead of doing it one time, it is a productivity optimization. I also have a software for doing nice call-outs, which are nicer than the standard labels IMO. I actually didn’t appreciate too much the “totally useless” comments, as I do spend quite a bit of efforts to do quality content. I do find useful to have the names of dishes on the photo, so people can choose dishes which look appealing when they go to the restaurant.
With respect to snapshots, it is also a productivity reason. I take the photos, generate a video from it, add the call-outs on the video, and then take the snapshot, again to avoid repeated work (I just have one source of content: the video which I can use for generating videos of various lengths or photos via snapshots; it is a massive productivity gain). I don’t find the quality low, as they are snapshots from high definition video.
But nevertheless, I got the feedback, no snapshot, no legend on photo, even if it means more work on my end. I will try these out and report here if they work.
Thank you for the clear feedback, @RestoWhim .
I am not used to provide canned replies. I checked your contributions, I read your post, and I provided the relevant links to you.
Google maps is not a social media, and the original, not processed, photo would be a great and time saving way to add helpful contents in Google Maps.
If the issue identified by the AI is in the photos the only way to have your review posted is to remove the photo that is triggering the filter.
A text added on the photo is useless for visually impaired people, and a redundant information for all the others because Maps manage menus according to the dish names added by us. This will give the users the opportunity, by exploring the dishes, to get more info, because the dish name will help Maps to put all the images of the same dish all together.
The photos I posted in my previous reply are your photos, linked here. You can clearly see the black part on the top and the bottom of the photo.
On desktop it appears even worse, with a small image inside a black screen.
Thank you for mentioning “redundancy”. In your last review you can find some examples: your first 3 photos are all showing the preparation of dishes. The 3 photos are not giving additional information about the place, so one of them would be enough.
Another photo was posted twice, for sure by mistake, but in case of a check of your contributions it will be considered a violation.
So if you really want to be helpful you should consider to follow the proper way to contribute.
Your photos are interesting, but acting to be productive by creating some content for posting it in more places it can be risky
That feels more like a point of view since Google Maps offers the following features:
Public profile
Subscribers, ability to subscribe to public profiles
Emojis to give feedback on reviews
Even some restricted ability to comment on posts (from business owners only)
It seems that there is an intent to at least add some social media-like features.
That part, I didn’t understand. Why do pictures save time compared to snapshots ?
Agreed, and until that recent experience with one specific appeal, the issue was that the specific figures were not flagged, I am glad that this seems to be changing, if systematic, it would be a big improvement.
That part I didn’t understand either, so I may be missing how text on photo is problematic for visually impaired people. I am not saying it is not, I am genuinely trying to understand that problem.
You are right that Google Maps coalesces dishes and allows to explore the menu that way, and it’s quite handy. But you are not factoring that there is another way to discover a restaurant that, in my experience, people use quite a bit as well. It is to browse through the reviews, and read some of the reviews and the attached photos. In that case, the dish photos do not have labels, unless manually added.
It is also one of the reasons why subscriptions exist: if people like the way someone is describing their restaurant experience, they may be inclined to follow them.
OK thanks, now I got that part. I thought that you were commenting on the resolution, but you are commenting on the black bars.
That feels again like a point of view. I respect that you don’t value such photos, but I personally enjoy seeing photos about dish preparation, and I think others do too. On a different front, I also value non-dish photos showing the external/internal atmosphere of the restaurant. All of these help me get a feeling about the place before I go there.
Thanks again for your answers. While I may not agree with all the comments, thanks for providing valuable feedback.
Thank you for the detailed reply, @RestoWhim
I value a lot dishes preparation, when we can see it. The three photos mentioned in my previous reply are showing someone standing while doing something.
If you know what I mean for Dish preparation you can check this review: https://goo.gl/maps/KcEHUfjGq4v88HL77?g_st=ac
Me too, I made a video for YouTube about the place, but as I was the author of photos and videos, in Maps I just posted what I photographed/filmed in there, before to create the video.
Of course I am not a food blogger, my idea when I contribute in Maps is only to be helpful. So I try to write reviews that are long enough to be consistent, but short enough to be “readable”. And as Maps is an inclusive environment, I add a dish name when Maps ask me the name.
