In the last few days several reviews of mine have been rejected.
I have been contributing to Google Maps for years (and am now a Level 8 local guide) and think it’s a fantastic resource.
However now I get “Your review isn’t posted … Reason: There is an issue with one or more photos or videos that you submitted. Content that doesn’t follow our photo and video criteria isn’t allowed.”
This can’t be true as I have been posting successfully for years. I never violate the content policies. There seems no way to challenge the rejection and get a human to have another look at what the AI got wrong.
Can anyone help to clarify and stop these unjustified rejections - otherwise I will just have to stop adding reviews … that surely helps no-one
Welcome to the community. This is your first post on Connect so it is good to know well about it. You can visit Help Desk to see the instructions about how to best use this community. You can also introduce yourself in the monthly topic.
In a flash checking your account, I see you’re contributing as a good user, while your contributions can be even better by following photo/review/edit tips on Connect.
Indeed hidden reviews are a common issue after the updates of spam filter. When we’re sure that our reviews don’t violate the policies, we can always request an appeal about the situation.
Since you see which individual review was rejected, you can press the respective button to request releasing it from the spam filter.
If there are lots of hidden reviews, then you can ask for a check by filling out this form as prepared in the related announcement.
It may take up to several weeks to check the form. This situation may happen again after a while and each time we should fill out the form. AI is continuously learning and our contributions are also part of this process. So, we may face some troubles in this regard from time to time.
I’m afraid that the “appeal” button also seems to have recently disappeared (there is not way to do: "you can press the respective button to request releasing it from the spam filter).
I have filled out the form you mentioned and await an answer (pity that this takes weeks!)
I have been contributing to Google Maps for years (and am now a Level 8 local guide) and think it’s a fantastic resource.
However, recently several reviews of mine are being rejected:
“Your review isn’t posted … Reason: There is an issue with one or more photos or videos that you submitted. Content that doesn’t follow our photo and video criteria isn’t allowed.”
Hallo, schauen sie auf der Seite Highlight den Beitrag von Rodrigo _P, wie wir Beiträge moderieren an und die lange Liste der betroffenen mit gleichen Problemen. Es geht vielen so aber vielleicht hilft es ihnen die ganze Problematik besser zu verstehen und zu handeln. Dieser Beitrag steht übrigens ganz unten unter dem aufklappbaren Pfeil
Do you mean you actually received a response as to why your review was not posted?
[“Your review isn’t posted … Reason: There is an issue with one or more photos or videos that you submitted. Content that doesn’t follow our photo and video criteria isn’t allowed.”]
The filter related to the photos attached to a review is in fact very harsh in the latest months, and I know that for personal experience: two of my reviews were recently blocked and I had to remove one of the photos. I’ve escalated the issue to the team, and I hope the filter will be improved, even if it can take time.
Fortunately you will be now Abe to identify which photo/video is triggering the filter by checking the photos section of your profile.
When you tap on the photo, if the photo has been blocked you will see a pop-up the following message: “Not posted”
I agree that the filter is overacting, but actually the only solution is to remove the photo.
I realised that on my last review one of the photo was a Logo of the business (a very close photo, so I removed it and I added a different photo where the logo was visible together with the storefront and the issue was fixed.
I also want to inform you that, as the subject is the same of your previous post, to keep Connect organised I am merging your two posts together.
Regarding the form that you filled, please be aware that the check of an account may take several weeks (8 in my case) so please be patient.
@VBenedict , this kind of notification is available actually in the European Union. If you check this section of connect you will find a lot of posts about this specific subject
Ich glaube ich verstehe die Problematik schon (der Filter ist neuerlich viel zu scharf eingestellt und exkludiert, gegen alle Regeln, die Nutzercontents)
Leider weiss ich nicht welcher aufklappbarer Pfeil gemeint ist (bin auf Chrome on Mac)
Many thanks Ermes, for your kind and useful reply.
Glad that someone is acknowledging (and also experiencing) that the filter is recently too harsh. That is the problem - not my content and the content of all others who are now being rejected.
If Google does not want people to stop posting content, they should fix this pronto.
Thanks also for the hint about being able to identify which photo(s) the robot thinks are against policy. Turns out all the photos on the rejected posts have a warning triangle with exclamation mark on them (which you click on, that indeed confirms that it thinks this photo is against content policy). This is clearly nonsense as all photos are completely inocuous (unless posting a photo of a croissant has suddenly become illegal).
I will certainly not adjust my photos to work around the whims of a malfunction filter. I will just stop posting content. I have posted thousands of reviews with no problems in the past and have over 17million views of them (as Google tells me). If Google is no longer interested in my content then I - and I hope a lot of other people - will look elsewhere. I am already spending far too much time on these fora, trying to find hidden forms to escalate etc - as I do (did) love Google Maps and want it to get back to its former self.
This is definitely another issue, @mgs2 , and yes, it is part of my experience and it has been already escalated to the team.
In the review that i mentioned in my previous reply all the photos were marked as “not appropriate”, even if in fact the only one that triggered the filter was the one that was resembling a Logo.
What I did was to remove all of them and to re-upload them one by one, saving the review after adding a photo.
The review was immediately released when I removed the photo.
When I added the photos the first two times everything was fine, and only the third photo was in fact blocking the review. Being in the area I simply took a “larger” photo where the building was also visible and I uploaded it.
I am using this kind of experience to understand what is triggering the filter, to simply avoid to post that kind of contents. Sharing your blocked photo here could give us the opportunity to check them, to try to better address you or to escalate the issue to the team.
In this way we can try to build some kind of “case study”
Just to add here, for the last months I also started getting reviews rejected messages for Google Maps. Been doing it for years, no issues until just lately.
I usually don’t take photos and my reviews are not at all times unique or full of smart words, but they are always honest and contentful.
Also, it’s strange that some of my reviews get posted, then responded to by the business owner, but then I get a rejection message and must appeal.
Frankly, such a behavior is no good, and those who put their time writing reviews will simply atop doing so, if this keeps happening
Good to know - that’s exactly what happend to me. Years of reviewing without any problems - but since a few months so many reviews get rejected. I have stopped posting reviews. No-one has provided a good explanation or offered a solution. If Google does not want our content then it will not get it.
Hallo, I have the same issue. I have been posting reviews for years with moderate activity. Most of the reviews are positive, usually without photos. My last reveiws were rejected and I cannot see the reason or find an answer. Did you get any explanation? Thank you in advance!
no, I got nothing from Google and I have not been submitting any reviews for months - if Google doesn’t want user input, then I will not waste my time crafting reviews, adding photos only to have them inexplicably rejected.
I tried again a week or so ago and again posts were rejected although it was all uncritical. Google is seriously messing up here - they live by user content and hope someone at Google will take notice at some stage.
I find reviews of Restaurants, Hotels etc really useful and am thus also happy to contribute myself. But the algorithm has been broken for months and no-one seems to be interested in fixing it. Pity. But there are plenty of alternatives outside Google (Tripadvisor etc) so if Google doesn’t want our input we just move elsewhere…