Start trusting your faithful local guides

Google Maps tips & tricks
1

Hi Google,

It’s very nice to let me know I’ve been a local guide for 5 years, added so many places on the maps, made so many corrections, etc, etc… But I think your local guide trust algorithm is flawed.

Here is a very simple example: https://goo.gl/maps/ApWkiYgRcySC89GR7

This is a fake store in the middle of Bear Island (Norway). That island is absolutely uninhabited (except maybe scientific missions, see interesting wikipedia article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_Island_(Norway))).

Somehow 1 local guide was trusted enough to create this abomination, a few more local guides were welcome to add pictures and reviews.

Herve_Andrieu_0-1626265483565.png
Herve_Andrieu_0-1626265483565.png874×555 542 KB

One of the reviews: “Best experience of my life, it was a cold swim to the island but once i got there i was hapelly greated by some local pinguins. Recomend 10/10.”

And then when I try to remove this wrong from the map (Doesn’t exist - duh!!!), I get an instant “Not applied - Google couldn’t verify your edit.”

Herve_Andrieu_1-1626265679838.png

So here is my real problem: I’ve been busy helping Google Maps for years, made thousands and thousands of contributions of all sorts, and the algorithm decides immediately my suggestion is worthless? Not even worth 2nd level review by a human? :confused:

I’m not even questioning how the place was added to the map in the first place on a remote island where there is no human life… :thinking:

Clearly something is wrong with such algorithm, so please instead of changing our badges into medals (and forgetting the badge hidden in StreetView by the way!), could you please try to improve the way our work is applied on the map?

I used this blatant example to make it easy to understand how bad the problem is, but it also applies to so many other edits of the reliable local guides army you have working for you…

Once again a bottle thrown in the ocean, because I already know the answer I will receive will be “This is the way”. :roll_eyes:

Or maybe my bottle will reach Bear Island visible at https://goo.gl/maps/GpGuoErMcnhsSMnx7

Tagging @KlaudiyaG since she is a moderator and she may get this cleaned up.

Thanks!

20 Likes
2

Hi @Herve_Andrieu sometime I have the same problem, hope you botte reach the river :slightly_smiling_face:

3

Even having a basic text box alongside the report so that you can justify why you’ve asked for a removal would be a start, AI might be able to understand keywords and escalate to a human rather than it just being an instant “no”.

4

Yes same thing here. Being trying to add many new places for long time with no luck. All my edits regarding new places had been denied with the same message “Google couldn’t verify your edit**”.**

5

Hi @TraciC

It’s been nearly a month since I started this conversation.

No one cares it seems.

I’m not here to hunt for votes, but to get a nice reliable map (maybe my strategy is wrong :roll_eyes: ).

Somehow it looks like the pictures on the fake store have been removed but the store is still there in the middle of nowhere.

Thanks!

6

Hi @Herve_Andrieu ,

Thank you for flagging this. The relevant team will look into it.

Since your post is not an idea but rather a feedback I am going to move it to the How-tos secrion of Connect.

As you know edit may not be applied when there isn’t enough information to be verified. Here you may read more.

On the other hand there are ideas related to what you have mentioned. For example - Google Maps Trusted Editor and 認定トップローカルガイドの提案 (Suggestion to make the title of the Trusted Local Guide).

Feel free to comment or vote on them. Despite those ideas are closed, Local Guides can still vote and we can come back at this Ideas at a later point.

Thanks

1 Like
7

Thanks @MashaPS for making this atrocity disappear from the map.

1 Like
8

@Herve_Andrieu Can I ask something? Being in the 1 billions views club, is there any benefits to it? Or is there no difference at all?

9

Hi @xmen123wood , being part of the bilionaires club as a Local Guide has absolutely no special benefits at all per se. Not even a higher likeliness of receiving any of the perks Google Maps sometimes sends to some very lucky guides. The only benefit is that you know that your pictures make a difference in the world. that millions were helped by the great content you have created. This is the benefit of belonging to the billionaires’ club.

Good luck with your improvements to the map!

2 Likes
10

Hi @Herve_Andrieu , I am quite curious. You have more than 100 thousand photos. Can you actually see your own most viewed photos. Something like the top 1 percent of your most viewed photos

As I contribute more photos in google map, I want to be able to see my top 1 percent most viewed photos constantly regardless of how many photos I have. Hundreds of thousands of photos later and I still can see them.

However, whenever I tried to see another person most viewed photos of an account with at least 40 thousands photos, the google map refuse to load it. I don’t know the reason why but I can only guess that google map cannot handle the huge amount of photos worldwide.

Do you have a solution to this?

11

Hi @xmen123wood

Unfortunately when your number of pictures is quite large, the limitations of the software make it impossible to check all your data.

In all honesty I have not attempted in a very long time to review all my pictures as it would take far too long given the quantity.

Once in a while I check on my top performs using the “sort by views” option.

In the end, if you provide a lot of content I think you have to trust Google Maps does optimally with it and don’t think too much about it.

Sorry I can’t be of more help!

All the best,

Herve

12

Hi @Herve_Andrieu , thank you for your reply.

Actually, I came across that issue is like what you said. I just use the “sort by views” option and for accounts with at least 40 thousand photos, google map simply does not load it at all. I have not having much problems seeing many hundreds of photos except for the extreme lagging which is normal to me. I am not really interested to see all of them. Only just my top 1 percent most viewed photos.

I really want to see my most viewed photos because I enjoy seeing the views numbers grow. I don’t want to lose the ability to see them in the future

So rather than squeezing hundreds of thousands of photos into 1 account like many local guides did, I will split it into different accounts so I can forever see my most viewed photos whenever I want to. Every time my number of photos reach around 20 thousand to 30 thousand, I will start to add my photos in another account. So on and so forth.

What do you think? I know google map has a rule on multiple accounts but that is kind of a different story. Not sure whether google map is actually trying to solve the issue or not.

13

Hi @xmen123wood

Using multiple accounts is definitely a big no, no. It’s against LG terms and conditions and you’re likely to get banned for life for this kind of trick (i’ve seen people post about their ban).

There are many ways in which Google Maps is not as good as it could be, so we need to work with what we have.
We still have this forum to complain about the issues, even though it feels very much like a bottle in the ocean… So best is to accept that “This is the way”.

Enjoy contributing!

1 Like
14

Hi @Herve_Andrieu

I am curious about something. You try to go to your google map and click “sort by views”. You try using your phone and computer to try it. Are you able to see anything or you also see the same thing as what I see?

Attached is the video link and picture of what I see

https://youtube.com/shorts/k1H4eB1PRtA

H2O .png
H2O .png817×838 146 KB

15

Hi @xmen123wood

It looks like there’s a bug in the version of Google Maps on your device. When I switch to sort by views on my phone or on my PC-based web-browser, I can see appear my top pictures. Of course I wouldn’t be able to scroll through all of them (I think it’s a memory limitation because the browser keeps in memory all the pictures you loaded, so after a few thousands your browser or app will crash for sure), but at least I see what’s at the top of my results.

I would recommend you post a question in the Help Desk part of Local Guides connect and share info on the device you’re using that basically shows you nothing when you try to sort by views (if I understand correctly your video).

Sorry I can’t help more help!

All the best in your local-guiding!