Sudden drop in points and review counts, but still public and visible

[Trachemysta]

Hi fellas. I created this post to summarize an issue I had a few weeks ago, where I had a sudden and drastic drop in all my reviews accompanied by a detraction of a lot of points in my profile. It is not a matter of a few individual reviews or a few places, it has happened suddenly (overnight) and massively: I have lost around 1,000 points (from 113,300 to 112,300) and for all the review categories I have in my profile, there has been a sharp decrease around 10% (for example, “ice cream parlor” went down from 40 to 35, “Madrid” went down from almost 300 to 277, etc.). In the google maps help forum they suggested it could be just a matter of hidden or private reviews because of inappropriate content, the place itself, my profile or reviews being private… However, first of all it happened suddenly, it seems a bit weird that I get the equivalent to 1,000 points in reviews drastically hidden, reported or become private… I also know when a review is not shown publicly. It is not the case for my reviews, for instance, each one of the actual 40 (but only counted as 35) in my “ice cream parlor” category can be seen in each place publicly on google maps with other profiles or in private windows. Moreover, for many of those I am constantly getting comments from the owner and reactions. This cannot happen if they are private or hidden.

Something curious I remember before this happened was that sometimes, when I would load my profile to see my points, reviews, etc… it would take a bit longer to load my profile page and showed like a old version of it regarding points and review counts (the same points and review counts I had for example 2 months ago). This would just be solved by reloading the page, or going back and forward, showing the correct and current number of points and reviews. It might seem as if now that “old version” is permanently there, stuck or frozen, because even now I have posted several new reviews of new places, which I confirmed are publicly visible (I can see them in incognito mode and for some I actually got already a reply from the owner and/or reactions from other users), but still the review category stays the same, not increasing in number.

I have tried the usual things, including logging out and back in, clearing cache, writing new reviews, etc… Any ideas why this happened and how to solve it?? In the google help forum they suggested posting my issue in this thread, which I already did. Unpublished reviews and photos on Google Maps.

This is the link to my public profile: Trachemysta

[Mohdmohdaljaman]

@Trachemysta تحياتي لك ارجو لك النجاح.عمل جيد .ان خدمة الناس فخر للجميع اما من ناحية ما سألت عنه سوف يجاوبك احد افراد الفريق حوله.لاتهتم سلام حار من الاردن

[WilfriedB]

Hello @Trachemysta ,
did you see this: Lost a lot of points suddenly?
This was a little more than a year ago with many local guides reported a similar issue. It was finally solved by tagging a Googler, who escalated it to the team.

[Trachemysta]

Hi @WilfriedB , thanks a lot. I was not aware of those threads and it seems to be very much like what I am experiencing . I am tagging @ErmesT and in hopes he can escalate this or summon some google moderator who can escalate it Thank you very much in advance!

[ErmesT]

Hi @Trachemysta
Please let me try to understand.
I used my spreadsheet to make some calculation, and here’s the result

According to your contributions list you should have 103,161 points. In fact you have 112,450 points. The positive difference of 9289 points can be explained with points that are not mentioned in the list of contributions, e.g. dish names, bonus points for editing a review, challenges etc.
What I mean is that, since the current points correspond, indeed, are higher, than your contributions the drop in points can only be explained by the “removal of contributions”. In fact you say that a certain number of contributions have disappeared from those counted by the categories. You mention Madrid for example.
Have the reviews disappeared from this count too?

I’m asking you because that’s the data that the points are calculated on.
And those points count whether our reviews and photos are public or have been made private by Google.
In theory that number can decrease only for two reasons:

• the places we contributed to have been deleted from Google Maps. In that case, however, if the removed places are within the EU, you should receive an email from Google informing you that your review is no longer in maps because the place has been removed
• There is an error in the counting of your contributions
  Do you happen to have a “previous” screenshot where we can see the number of photos and reviews you had before the problem appeared? This could help The team to troubleshoot the issue

[Trachemysta]

Hi @ErmesT . First of all thank you very much for taking the time to have a look at this. I did a lot of dishes names, editings and stuff that can explain the negative difference you mention, yes. Unfortunately, I do not have a screenshot for the previous status before the sudden drop. But I have a screenshot of the tier list of total points here on local guides connect from January 5th, where it can be seen that I had back then 113,055 points (position 102), I am attaching the screenshot.

Nevertheless, I do remember clearly that before the drop I had 297 in Madrid, 40 in ice cream parlor, 23 in winery and 59 in Leon, as well as almost 113,300 points. This was around 3 weeks ago. After this happened overnight, I have made many more contributions, for instance, at least 5-6 in madrid, 2 ice cream parlor, 2-3 in winery, 2 in Leon and 7-8 in Davis (which did not change in the drop, reamining in 85). However, in 3 weeks although I got the corresponding points for the reviews and photos of the new places, the review category counts are frozen since the drop happened. Answering your question

In fact you say that a certain number of contributions have disappeared from those counted by the categories. You mention Madrid for example.
Have the reviews disappeared from this count too?

No, the reviews have not disappeared, nor have they been made private or hidden. That is why it is so weird. Even if you go now to my ice cream parlor category which has 35 counts, on the list you can count 40 (the original number I had before the drop). All of those are public and visible.

I did get a couple of emails where some contributions were removed because the place no longer exists, but that does not account for this drop. So my guess is that some kind of glitch happened on google’s end. As I mentioned, before this drop happened I got this temporal glitch where when loading my profile I got like an old version of my profile (with the points and counts I had a few months back) in the category counts and general points that just solved by reloading my profile. It seems like that old version just got frozen now.

[Trachemysta]

@ErmesT And now I get this in my profile

What on earth is going on? It says increase in suspicious high-rated reviews. My recent reviews are quited varied, I do have some 5-star ones, but also 4, 3 or even 2. I quite do not understand.

[ErmesT]

@Trachemysta , this is a general message from Google, not related to your contributions. Please read Nothing to be scared of: New "Consumer alert message in your profile

[Trachemysta]

Oh, thanks, I was worried and thought it had something to do with this current post issue . Hope the other thing can be solved or at least explained…
Anyway, many many thanks for your help @ErmesT !

[Trachemysta]

Hi @ErmesT sorry to bother you again. Were you able to figure out what the problem is? Should I write to any particular google moderator? Besides the current issue, and I guess related to it, review category counts are still frozen, 1 month without update even though I have posted many new reviews (all confirmed to be public). Many thanks again

[MoniDi]

Hi @Trachemysta,

We will escalate this to the relevant team.

[Trachemysta]

Hi @MoniDi thank you very much, I appreciate the help. Have a nice day!

[Trachemysta]

Hi @MoniDi @ErmesT. Sorry to bother you again. Is there any update? The issue is getting worse. Around one week ago I got a bit of an increase in the review categories number and I thought little by little it was going to recover. However 3 days ago I got again a decrease which has been repeated every day, decreasing back even further than it was when I first reported this. I am attaching screenshot of the last three days of my profile.

As you can see the categories counts go down every day but the total review number remain unchanged (view number do decrease though). Also, since all of this started I have posted many new reviews, none of them have been acknowledged yet in their respective category. For instance, the “Madrid” category had around 300 before all of this started, then it decreased to 277 when I first described the issue. Since then I must have done at least 15 new reviews, all of them public and visible (got replies and reactions), still no update in the category counts. One week ago it increased to 284 (but none of the new reviews still considered). Two days ago it went back to 280, yesterday went down to 276 and today it is 273. All of this without getting any messages for deleted reviews or places, or inappropriate content, and the number of total reviews not changing. Also, as I mentioned before, if you click on any category to see the list and actually count the reviews, it does not match the number. Do you have any new info on your end? This is clearly some kind of glitch.

[MoniDi]

Hi @Trachemysta, we’ve raised this once again to the relevant team.

[Trachemysta]

Thank you @MoniDi, it keeps decreasing every day… This is a screenshot of my profile today.

Please let me know if I can provide any info to the relevant team that might help solve the issue.