Hello everyone!
I’m so excited to have found my way here. I’ve come to enjoy reviewing many local business and advising on the best points of my experience. Lately my review likes have not been counting and it’s stopped my level progress. Could anyone explain why this has happened or how I can fix that?
Thanks everyone!
Hello @Oldmanodie and Welcome to Connect
You said that lately your review likes have not been counting and it’s stopped your level progress. Review likes don’t have any impact on your level progress so I wouldn’t be concerned about that. However, having just had a look at your Google Maps profile, I can see that your reviews are gaining likes but what is of concern is that there appears to be a fairly consistent Likes count for your review. You need to be aware that a Local Guide that gives likes to their own reviews or organizes friends and family to give likes could lead to the reviews being set to private and is a practice that infringes the Maps User Contributed Content Policy. As such, these practices could lead to removal from the Local Guides program!!!
Since you are new to Connect, for some great tips and to help you get your feet on the ground here I suggest that you should have a look at Your guide to Connect. Another good idea is to introduce yourself in the monthly Community Introduce Yourself post.
Finally, I am going to move your post to the How-tos topic where Local Guides ask questions like yours about Google Maps, the Local Guides program and Connect. I recommend that you read the What are Connect topics? post to learn more about Connect topics.
Keep guiding!
Hi @Oldmanodie ,
Thanks for reaching out to us! As @AdamGT mentioned, the number of likes your reviews receive doesn’t affect your level as a Local Guide.
About the topic of giving likes to our own reviews or asking friends to like our reviews, despite not being explicitly mentioned in the Community Policy or in the Local Guides Terms and Conditions, we strongly advise against it because all the content contributed by users on Maps, likes included, should be the genuine result of an unbiased experience.
To know more about the topic, you can also read the following pages:
Hi @Oldmanodie
I agree with @AdamGT that your amount of likes of both photos and reviews looks suspiciously high. I have helped other local guides who got suspended for Self-liking their reviews and photos.
So I would recommend you undo any self-likes and likes you requested from friends and family.
Your original issue about not having the total of likes calculated correctly is a know bug that has been around for years. Fixing this has been requested repeatedly to no avail. I decided to stop worrying about it. The figure is more correctly calculated in the monthly mails we get.
Feel free not to follow my tips on self-liking. I just wanted to mention it to be helpful.
Cheers
Morten
Is it mentioned specifically that Self-liking is not okay in the guidelines? I never found it.
Cheers
Morten
@MortenCopenhagen all content, likes included, should be based on the real experience of the contributor and, on this, I believe it’s implied in the policy in statements such as the following:
Thanks, @AdamGT .
I think there is room for some interpretation. If I genuinely like my photos… Never mind. There is no doubt that Self-liking is unwanted.
All the best
Morten
