I recently reviewed a business after a poor experience. I kept the review factual, and provided details. I wanted to share it with some friends, and upon doing so, they could not see it.
Here the review using the “share” link -
https://goo.gl/maps/LvHFnuRo63RiKyMU8
Did I violate some rule or guideline?
mkw
Hello again. It’s been several months I’m banned from reviews. I’ve written here already and @DeniGu told me that she sent my profile for a review month ago. But nothing changes and my reviews are not public. Can I follow the investigation somehow or contact someone else? Or is it normal to wait for so long?
Hello LexsZ2009! They just started the investigation into my profile. I have no idea how long it will take. They said it would take a while and to please be patient. I agree. It is very frustrating. They probably need to fix the spam filter because it appears it is flagging too many reviews for no good reason. Also, Google, with all of its advanced technology and resources, should most definitely put in place some sort of notification for local guides so that we know exactly which and when a review is made private.
Hi,
Finally all of my reviews are visible publicly, except one I wrote yesterday that is still blocked. For those reviews of mine that got unblocked, thanks to @AngieYC @InaS and backend support.
For info of fellow Local Guides: I have been adding reviews lately and experimenting to see what gets blocked and what doesn’t. It seems that in order not to get in trouble and blocked, reviews should only be 2 or 3 sentences and have 10 or less photos. In other words, we have to write like AI. No matter how much we want to tell people about the decor, service, parking, prices, cleanliness, what exact dishes we liked and didn’t, etc. we cannot; we must hold back and write something very simple that won’t be misunderstood by AI as fake. And no matter how interesting the place, that makes us want to share so many wonderful photos, we need to hold back and post very few photos.
Example of a review that was blocked by AI, now released by support:
We visited this hidden gem in Kuala Lumpur on a weekday. We booked online for the morning slot that starts at 10 am. Entrance is free but no bags allowed. There are 4 floors of exhibits including a money tunnel made up of a million ringgit in notes. We enjoyed the numismatic gallery which had many old coins and notes. The art collection on the top floor was also very good. Staff were extremely helpful, courteous and welcoming. We spent an enjoyable two and a half hours here. (31 photos)
Example of a review that was allowed by AI:
They have lots of vegetarian dishes here. They also sell frozen vegetarian food. (10 photos)
I have watered down my writing and I am sure it makes my reviews less helpful to others, but in doing so, the AI allows my reviews to be publicly visible. I am sure this was not the vision and purpose of Google Maps reviews, but this is the harsh reality of what the AI blocking has made it. Google Maps is dead; long live Google Maps.
Hello @MashaPS
Thank you for your help, my previous reviews are now visible and my new review are not automaticaly refused, Enjoy !!! 
@InaS That worked over 500 reviews are all showing again but now none of my new reviews are showing may we see how I can have my new reviews showing as well? Thank you for sending my profile and getting all my past reviews to show again.
Wow! I hope my account is fixed and my old reviews get added however, I agree that Google maps will be dead if our reviews must be watered down to being unhelpful.
My issue which I reported isn’t resolved there is nothing as such in my reviews that it’s not showing up on the concerned page except my own profile, continuation of such a problem may dishearten the contributer from adding up more reviews with original photos
Thankyou!
Hi it’s paekosing I suffer from the same problem just read you comment!
Hi, I posted a 1 star review with no commentary 2 days ago and it’s not showing to the general public, only I can see it, and it doesn’t affect their ratings. Today, I posted a 5 star review with commentary and it was accepted. I think the update has affected my account somehow.
I currently have 3 reviews hidden from 58.
Firstly Tanino below, which we first visited 4 months ago and wrote a review which was deemed as acceptable, yet last month on our second visit and despite being asked to edit the review is now hidden. The review was not edited, only photos added.
Check out this review of Tanino San Pedro on Google Maps
https://goo.gl/maps/24dmeVA3GCytipzr5
Secondly, we made a third visit to Casa Doña Jeronima 2 weeks ago and only added photos to an existing review which had been public for almost a year. It then became hidden
Check out this review of Casa Doña Jerónima on Google Maps
https://goo.gl/maps/MvAAeTP4s6rimDTU8
We visited Savor for the first time last week and was asked to rate/review, which I did and that review is hidden. I added 15 photos, as we had the taster menu of 13 courses plus other dishes. If this is considered too many, as I have seen in another post, then it should be stated.
Check out this review of Savor, Restaurante y Tapas on Google Maps
https://goo.gl/maps/3VnEWoZu1TKXxPdW7
Could you please check my acc
Hello everyone,
I’m not completely sure if my problem also falls under this category or not. Currently I’m in holidays in South France and I was made aware from my family that they couldn’t see some of my reviews from restaurants I told them about (they know that I leave a lot of reviews 
)
I’m rather confident that I’m not violating the guidelines. Also when I check my profile and recheck it in a private browser session it doesn’t show any difference.
Here are two recent examples:
I was wondering if the Google “Spam” algorithm maybe has a problem that I’m in holiday in France right now? 
I never saw this behavior when I’m doing my regular reviews in Germany.
From browsing trough the Connect forum so far I saw that @MashaPS or @MortenCopenhagen maybe could give me some insights? Thank you for you help
EDIT: I just realized that the pictures corresponding with my reviews are online 
that makes it even more strange, because I can’t figure out what could be wrong with my written reviews
Hi @kramkr
I can confirm from your public profile that you have added 359 reviews and only 343 of them are public.
Google has automatic filters that hide your reviews so only you can see them. This can happen when some of your reviews violate the guidelines, including:
Prohibited and Restricted Content
Format Specific Criteria (See under Text Reviews and Captions)
Read about typical review guideline violations here.
If you are on a Desktop use this link to Count your hidden contributions. From a mobile device use this link.
If you want to identify which of your reviews are hidden please see this post.
Hopefully a Google moderator will send your profile for a manual check.
The fact that photos added to a review goes public and not the review text is not unusual.
Best of luck
Morten
Thank you very much for helping here. I just now saw the error I made when i tried to count my reviews. I really wonder why those 16 reviews aren’t going trough some of those have to be more in the past probably.
As I said before I’m confident that i didn’t violate the guidelines.
Is there any way to apply to a Google moderator for a manual check? Or should i just rewrite the recent reviews? - But then again I really don’t understand what I could have done wrong … maybe to formal?
I have several reviews that are not showing publicly! Can this be resolved? I can see them in my content, but the business cannot see the review on google.
Hi some months ago I was downgraded from Master Writer to Novice writer on my Badge.
I really don’t understand why. I haven’t got any reviews taken away. And there are a lot of strange things going on. As you can see I have only 11 ratings and I do know that all my reviews have ratings, although not all my ratings have reviews.
I also know that more than 300 hundred of my reviews were long, and I also had a lot of likes. I actually think my points were precisely under the limit for getting the last badge, when I was sent back to the start.
My points are still there, but I liked the badge and want it back
Any thoughts Johan
Thanks @AngieYC - just a friendly nudge as it’s been a few weeks now and I’ve postponed any more reviews until this group is made available. Cheers
In fact only 30 of your reviews are publicly visible. When a review is made private, the likes are not counted, and this is the reason why you lost your reviewer badge
Regarding the number of ratings, only the ratings without a review are counted in there, so it is normal to have a low number of ratings. Ideally we should have zero, if you also write a review every time we add a rating.
By writing in this thread, the team will check your profile, and if your reviews complies with the policies will be live again once our investigation is over.
Please as mentioned before, have in mind that this might take some time
