From September 2025 we will no longer be able to follow other Maps users and be followed.
In my opinion, this feature has been a half hearted attempt to move Maps towards social media. We have not been able to communicate or interact with followers so I find the follow feature to be of very little value. A few users have been very focussed on getting followers. I don’t understand why as they carry no real value in my opinion.
So I don’t mind this. What do you think?
UPDATE midt August
This discussion now have more than 100 replies.
I wanted to remind every one that if you use a computer or webbrowser you can still visit the profiles you want to keep track of and save them as bookmarks in a dedicated folder in your webbrowser.
It a workaround. Not perfect but I’m sure helpful to some.
UPDATE late August:
There has been some confusion. While following is ending on Maps, there is still a following feature here on Connect. This will continue to work.
UPDATE October 1st:
I just updated my Android Maps app and my followers are now gone for good.
C’est quand même dommage, je suivais des utilisateurs de ma region et je retrouvais leur avis tout en haut quand je visitais un lieu ou ils avaient noté. Plus besoin de chercher des bons avis.
Google a rajouté cette fonction mais j’ai l’impression que il n’a jamais pris en compte le côté social de Maps.
Cela aurait eu vraiment la peine de pouvoir contacter les guides pour avoir des informations qui ne figurent pas dans leurs avis par exemple.
Fantastic!! This is wonderful @MortenCopenhagen. I’ve asked so many times for an explanation of the rationale behind Followers and Following, and no good responses have been forthcoming.
There’s also this thread So many fake bots following lately!, which gives a good idea of what’s been happening lately regarding the subject.
I don’t so social media, so I never had a good feeling about it being part of the Maps program.
I didn’t understand till now what benefit to do follow someone or have followers in map profile in fact if we follow someone on connect forum you got the notification about their post. Anyway thank you very much for update in Advance. Dear @MortenCopenhagen sir
I’m happy about this change, @MortenCopenhagen , because it was widely misused.
I know, for many it was an additional way of gamification.
For others it was a way to spam Google Maps with very inappropriate profiles.
Well, I’m sure that now we will have less likes on our photos and reviews, but at least I hope they will be “genuine”.
What I like of that message is also that they are inviting the Local Guides to join Connect
but a little disappointed that Map is going to be the new social media. And I don’t understand social media, I understand in socialism that if you do something good, it comes back to you. & i see a map as Geo technology. @MortenCopenhagen sir
The decision makes sense in this respect. There are guides who state on their profiles on Google Maps that they earn money by giving reviews and are followed by many people because of this.
The flaw in this decision is that people are left lacking in information through the people they follow. Most of my followers are local guides like me. In fact, the conditions for becoming a local guide should be made more difficult and only local guides should be able to be followers. As I suggested before, the local guide badge should be awarded at least at level 5-6.
With this decision, the number of people using Google Maps will decrease because there are people who follow me who are not local guides. I think the decision is partially correct. It would also be encouraging if local guides could follow each other.
Anyone who wants to read my comments on Google Maps can do so by visiting my profile. I couldn’t figure out the exact purpose here. We are in 2025 and we have completed a quarter of a century of the 21st century. Google should have taken steps to move it forward. Some things have changed at Google with some of my suggestions, but it has been many years since the internet entered our lives.
@MortenCopenhagen I believe that if we can engage with these followers, it would be very interesting, especially for sharing experiences.
Furthermore, there’s the issue of many fake profiles and companies appearing, trying to recruit people for fake reviews.
@MortenCopenhagen Ji
Totally agree with you. The follow feature always felt a bit disconnected since there was no real way to interact. For me, the real value on Maps comes from genuine contributions, not follower numbers. So I’m okay with this change too.
I don’t think follow function necessarily means there shall be whatever kind of “interaction” between the followers and the followed. My understanding is some people choose to follow some Local Guides in order to be notified when there are new reviews/photos published by the LG they follow, as perhaps they find that LG’s contribution worthy of higher priority notice. While the follow function in general may seem of little use or no use to many, it may be useful for some other existing users. And as the function does no harm, I think to remove it is overall a negative to Google Maps.
So far, I personally haven’t found this feature particularly useful. It doesn’t significantly impact contributions; it’s probably most useful for notifying followers that we’ve created a new post. However, the Google Maps profile algorithm differs from social media, where users can’t engage with each other.
So, I wouldn’t mind if this feature were removed.
