Hello Guide Community and Google Maps team,
I am a professional content creator and I wanted to contribute to Google Maps by uploading some of my content during my travels.
The issue : Made a new google account specifically for my Maps contributions. Afterwards I did a bunch of reviews and uploaded photos and videos. Shortly I realized that non of them are visible to to public, only to the account I use to publish them.
What happened? : I am following all the Content Guidelines, so it is not the content itself or my account. Probably my account got flagged as “bot activity”, because of the big volume of reviews posted shortly after registration.
What did I try? : I uploaded the same content with another Google account and it was visible. That is why it is not the content, it is the Google Maps’ algorithm that is responsible. I filled this form as it was suggested a month ago. I still don’t have an answer.
What is the Solution? : Obviously I am not a bot and obviously it is an issue with your algorithm. Can you please solve it for us? I really hope there is someone in Google who can fix this recurring issue for the whole community (it has been happening for years).
It would be very sad and concerning if Google’s own ITs don’t know what is happening behind the algorithm and how to fix it!
4 Likes
Problem is still there. I am still looking for a solution! What is the point of this community if it cannot help solving basic common issues?
Hello @thevisualg ,
Sorry for responding late to your post.
I trust as you said that your contents are within the boundary of Google Policy: Map Policies , Prohibited Contents.
You have also confirmed in your post that you have already filled up this form.
Believe in me if the above is true, most likely your post will be re-instated.
The investigation process takes sometime and if it is found okay, they will be made public. It takes couple of months due to high volume of such verification at Google end to go through all of them manually.
Keep building informed community stronger together.
JAI HO!!!
1 Like
Thank you for the reply.
It is a bit weird, because currently small part of my content and reviews that were not visible before are visible now. but the majority are still not. It’s seems that its completely random.
Out of your 50 reviews only 2 are public and rest 48 are hidden @thevisualg . Even around 200 of your photos are also hidden.
I assume you have asked for verification of both reviews and photos.
While replying to a specific LG, kindly type @UN which you will get in the drop down after typing @ slowly.
This way you will get the prompt response as the relevant LG will get notified.
JAI HO!!!
1 Like
Update: October 2023
After filling in this form and waiting for 2 months my old reviews and photos were finally verified and posted.
However I recently uploaded more photos and posted reviews from my recent trip to Sri Lanka.
Unfortunately, I am again running to the same issue as before:
None of my new reviews and photos are visible to others!
My current stats and situation:
- 58 out of 81 reviews are visible to others
- 308 out of 479 photos are visible to others
So, I filled and submitted again the Form for Account investigation for contributions not visible on Google Maps
Hopefully I don’t need to wait for 2 months again and my issue is resolved faster. Update about the situation will follow.
I guess being a contributor to Google Maps goes in package with that absurd procedure.
Please fix your flagging algorithm… this issue has been around for years already…
Update: November 2023
Still no actions have been taken by Google more than a month after filling in the form. My recent reviews and photos are still not visible to others.
Any type of content that I upload through this account gets instantly automatically flagged and I have to wait for months after filling in the form mentioned above, so that someone manually checks my content, approve it and make it visible to others.
My current stats and situation:
- 58 out of 96 reviews are visible to others.
- 311 out of 592 photos are visible to others.
I am following all the Community and Content Guidelines and it is obvious that the issue is withing the flagging algorithm, which for no justified reason is targeting my account.
Is there any way of lifting that Curse?!
Update: January 2024
It has been almost 3 months since I had the latest automatic flagging issue. Even after filling in the form months ago, still no account review has been done so far.
One interesting thing that I noticed is after editing a review (by correcting my spelling errors, or removing duplicate photos) that is publicly visible, it immediately becomes invisible to others and stays that way. Again, obviously the algorithm instantly flags whatever I output through this account…
My current stats and situation:
- 64 out of 110 reviews are visible to others.
- 407 out of 804 photos are visible to others.
More updates will follow…
Update: March 2024
After 6 months of waiting finally some of my contributions managed to become public! Unfortunately not all of them. (explained in detail further in this post).
My current stats and situation:
- 104 out of 124 reviews are visible to others.
- 882 out of 1067 photos are visible to others.
Posted it on another thread, but sharing it here too:
I have been tinkering and editing my posts and here are my observations:
- Turns out duplicate photos are not an issue at all. Every time I post such - they are visible to the public and don’t get flagged.
- Editing old reviews. I experimented with removing photos or adding additional words to my old reviews (which were not visible to the public) and when I posted them – they were immediately visible to the public. After that I figure out that I don’t need to change anything at all about those old reviews, simply clicking “Edit” and straight away “Post” was enough to make them visible to the public.
- The amount of photos per review, didn’t seem to make any difference at all. Single photo reviews or 10+ photo reviews seem to be treated the absolutely same way by the flagging algorithm.
- Too much profile activity in a short amount of time = flagged (not visible reviews/photos to the public)
That brings me to the last observation. Several days ago I added a bunch of posts and did the “edit” trick (from point 2) for my old reviews. 37 reviews in total were successfully published and visible to the public. After that the flagging algorithm targeted me and now none of my new reviews or edits get publicly published. However my new photos (not as reviews) are still publicly visible.
Now all I can do is fill in some random form provided by the community and wait for several months until the “quarantine” gets lifted. And repeat the whole process until the flagging algorithm gets better at detecting actual bot activity.
From the testing it seems that point 4 is what is causing the issue with invisible reviews/photos in my particular case.
Some extra details:
- I have created this account specifically for my Google Maps contributions, however for my daily Google Maps use - I have another account.
- I travel often and my contributions are from different locations, far apart from one another.
- The contributions are not being posted from a mobile device, but a desktop only.
- The reasons for a big volume of contributions in a short amount of time:
- When I travel, the last thing I want to do is to spend time on my phone, by posting reviews and photos every day.
- I am contributing higher visual quality content by not using my phone, but a professional camera - This requires an editing workflow, which often is done at the end of my travels.
- I am not earning anything out of my contributions to Google Maps, that is why I aim for efficiency. My goal is to spend the least amount of time and do the highest quality contributions possible. That is why my workflow is “all at once” instead of “one by one”.
The whole looping process of contributing / content getting flagged for bot activity / filling the form / waiting / re-editing old contributions / posting / getting flagged again for bot activity / filling the form again / waiting again / …etc. is veeery annoying and demotivating.
