I have noticed that since last year many of the reviews I write don’t get automatically accepted. Google seems to be flagging every single review now and I always get an e-mail saying “Your review isn’t posted” where I can submit an appeal. I have been submitting appeals for every single review and they eventually get accepted but I don’t understand why I have to do this now every time. I have wrote hundreds of reviews and currently Local Guide Level 7. Please fix this issue. Thank you.
I am also here due to this issue. Seems I was shadow banned for no reason. I can’t find any reason. I had tons of views and good reviews, sometimes around November 2023 all my pics from Europe got flagged. Some are just that, pics of a building or statue with no text review.
What you are experiencing is not normal. The spam filter is designed to stop fake reviews and some of your actions (not nessesarly the reviews themselves) made the spamfilter suspicious.
Your profile is set to restricted. If you want help to spot what could be the cause, you need to change your privacy setting as explained here temporarily. It can also be done from a Desktop computer. Goto Your contributions, then Profile settings, then toggle Restricted profile.
Thanks for your quick reply.
I have just done as you suggested and change my profile to “unrestricted”.
Please let me know how can I fix this issue.
Kind regards,
Helio
If you want to identify which of your reviews are hidden check this post.
A review just saying “The best.” is not helpful. Nor is Top service, or Top place. You need to “prove” you have been there. Describe you experience and share how you liked it and why.
13 of your photos have been taken down. However, I think editing to improve your reviews should be priority number 1. Feel free also to delete 1-2 word reviews.
After fixing your reviews I think your profile will stabilize. If not you could try the second form you mentioned again. Keep in mind, that it takes several weeks for the check to be done, and you will not be notified about the result, so I suggest you check the status of your reviews once a week or so.
I forgot to mention that reviews posted to places in the EU might have an appeals options if you click “Details”. That normally works better and faster than the general form you mentioned. But please start by making your reviews follow the guidelines.
Hi @MortenCopenhagen to be honest I don’t think I am flagged because of the reasons you mentioned.
as you know I have 421 reviews, from which 52 are hidden. It would take me ages to find out the hidden ones and to be honest if there is no easy way to do that I will just pass. There are way more interesting ways to spend my time. Many times I don’t even write a review but just rate the place instead with 1-5 stars. That should be fine as well as that is usually the way people rate places without describing everything in detail. 99% of the people don’t do that anyways so if Google is actually picking on that (which I don’t really believe), soon there will be no reviews anywhere as people will simply not bother at all to write anything or waste time with this. What I think happened is that there was a bar I was at few years ago where I had left a negative review (as many others) and this bar had contracted a lawyer to try and remove all the negative reviews (which should be illegal anyway as all reviews were legit). I believe since then my account has been flagged.
I have sent the form “Account investigation for contributions not visible on Google Maps” last year and today as well so I will wait to see what happens. If nothing is done, I think I will just pass or continue appealing reviews that are not being posted as after that 100% get posted. It’s just annoying but it’s how it is it seems.
@heliote and @MortenCopenhagen there is yet another reason, why you might receive the mail “Your review isn’t posted”. In fact this happened to me several times and was not related to what wrote. Instead the place (restaurant, business or point of interest) was removed from Google Maps, which in turn made the review invalid. Why was the place removed? Except for one case (duplicate reported), I have no idea.
Another one was a restaurant inside a hotel. The hotel pin still exists and its Web site states there is also a restaurant, but that pin with tons of reviews and photos was removed and - as I just found out - a new restaurant pin was created very recently (probably by a new owner) with three photos and no reviews. Anyway, my review is hidden along with a photo with more than 100,000 views.
Yet another example was a historical landmark - ruins of a castle (close to Chiesa di San Giuliano ) on Isola Polvese in Lago di Trasimono.
@WilfriedB thanks for sharing that. Well in my case it happens now with every single review I try to post. Eventually they get accepted after submitting an appeal, it takes 2-3 days. It’s just annoying though.