Many Uploaded Photos Never Appearing on Google Maps

[KOBAYASHI_Jun]

Hi @PaulPavlinovich

I'm sorry. Because I am not good at English, I am using Google translation.

Thanks for the information, Paul 🙂

Hi @BruceDM

I use Google Translate because Japanese is complex and my intention is not well communicated, so I will reply in a native language when I get better accuracy 🙂

[Briggs]

Dear all,

Caption: 'Soon' can be a long long time before I've lost my way.

Many more photos have been uploaded since my last post 12 days ago, and now it's come to a point where I am highly discouraged. The photo to the left is at the St Mary's Police Station. I've taken countless photos of police stations, even the Australian Federal Police headquarters, but I can't figure out why my one is being treated as spam. I've also countlessly shared photos at local BWS (Beer, Wine Spirits) stores and this one even upload after upload, crop after crop always, backup after backup, it just fails to attach to the POI, on multiple occasions.

I don't know why but even up to 10% of photos I contribute don't even go public anymore. I don't want to complain much anymore, but I might as well be mature about it and walk away. We can't sit down and find a solution together, we can't go behind the scenes and release these photos from limbo, maybe because the technology isn't there yet.

If you tell me that my photos will be public on Google Maps soon, don't stretch your timeframes. You tell us that you value our contributions, but when we try to, you don't ever let them see the light of day. Can't you at least do something, anything, please?

[Briggs]

Here is a conversation that I recently had with another local guide, trying to gather intel about why these photos aren't attaching to the POI/going public (note: Green is me, Blue is the other individual):

• Each time I do my Google Maps uploads, so many photos don't attach to the listing anymore, and they're not bad photos at all! But I need to get everything back on track again.
• They are limiting the numbers of photos you can add now, that is all. It is not you. It is for everyone. You can only add 10 pictures now.
• Where is this article? Where did you hear this? Show me. I hope with your first statement that you aren't mistaking it for Local Guides Connect's photo upload limits and not actually Google Maps or on a particular listing.
• I will see what I can find for you, I was told by a friend... The photo limits thing was about Google Maps and it was about getting the best shots for Google Maps.
• "Only" 10 pictures is extremely concerning for the photo upload sessions where I upload more than a 100 in a day for probably about 80+ different listings. So I have to split my uploads over ten whole days? Or is it 10 pictures per listing? So what is the point now? I'm trying to make an honest, truthful and beautiful representation of these listings, whether they would be parks, businesses, buildings, or some 'secret gems' and now Google thinks that I should just keep these gems secret for no one else to see by rejecting the upload? Just show me the article and/or conversation so I know the exact details as to why they're limiting the photo uploads to just ten on Google Maps. Help clear my conscience of these doubts or concerns.
• Please stay positive. It was a little while ago now and it was a verbal conversation. That keep your photos to limit ten was probably just aimed at me.

I know. When I get all heated up, my attitude can be less than pleasant and even desperate sometimes. But from this conversation, I both deduce and make hypotheses that:

• Somewhere's there's this hard limit of photos you can upload, but it was never clarified whether it would be in one photo-uploading session or at one POI. The issue of photos not attaching to the POI as I've previous stated occurs whether I upload 110+ photos in a day, or only 4 that day. This is a contradiction.
• Somehow the photo limits only exist because Google Maps only wants the "best shots". I admit, sometimes my photos aren't the best or even great, but Google Maps usually accepts most photos, even the most irrelevant or least quality of photos on listings. Doesn't Google Maps encourage an accurate, honest representation of a business by anyone, for everyone?

Like what @Flash has quoted, which I strongly believe:
Restricting the narrative and photos to only the owner is more what you will see in a business directory, which is not the function of Google Maps.  Google is attempting to get the most accurate representation of a place possible, which means more than just promotional material that will always show every place as being fantastic.  They have invited the business owner to participate and do give them more prominence and trust, but they do not exclude information from anyone else.

---

I'm just trying to do what's right, and something that will have endless value in the future, both for the local community and Google. I might just be one measly little local guide, but I want to put my heart into something that will be appreciated, and not impeded by unforeseen 'backend tweaks'.

Although I might be at a lonesome here due to the fact that this is a lot more subtle than most other issues, I am noticing these issue more and more. People will notice immediately and react unfavourably when their edits are immediately not applied, but not when they're just uploading and having a tenth of their photos uploads fall through the cracks. I recognise this not just on my uploads but with many others too.

Businesses are losing out on better Google Maps representation (since many of these don't even have a photo, just a Streetview image most of the time), and my discrepancies are growing wider. If you want me to do research, then that's fine. But this needs to be dealt with sufficiently.

[Briggs]

This photo failed to attach to Gingham & Heels several times.Caption: A shopfront photo of Gingham & Heels. Google Maps cannot accept this as an accurate photo.

It literally says Gingham & Heels twice in the photo. Out of 150 photos, 10 of them had issues getting through, and after trying countless tries to get it to upload, I've actually managed to get it to only this one by resetting the metadata (e.g. time, location, photo information, etc). There are no identifiable people, no objectionable content and it's an accurate, honest representation of the shopfront. I had a few issues trying to re-upload many other photos lately, but it seems like there has been some backend improvements.

Note that as per the Google My Business community, businesses can't prevent photos from being added to their listing.

Your move.

@BruceDM and @ArielleM_, have you heard any developments lately or devised ways to help with this?

[Briggs]

Dear diary,

Today, I went to Cabramatta, NSW. I took 36 pictures. Out of those 36 pictures...

• They were uploaded to 32 unique places, and
• all 36 out of 36 photos attached successfully to the POI.
• I also took down about 10 portals as well.

This is good news. Alternatively, I made attempts to upload Gingham & Heels once again. It failed a few times, but after:

• Clearing the metadata,
• Resizing the image to small (e.g. 1600 × 1200 from 4048 × 3036), and
• Cropping most of the image...

The photo has beautifully attached to Gingham & Heels. Check it out!

@BruceDM, I apologise for being so pressuring and tagging you haphazardly. Somehow, I believe that backend improvements were implemented which has allowed me to upload to my heart's purist content without any of them hitting any speed bumps. So I'm quite pleased.

We're not out of the woods yet. There are still 146 out of 8,562 (1.7%) photos that need to be found, deleted, edited and re-uploaded to attach to the POI. Sifting through 8,000+ photos and loading through all my images is not going to be easy. But this will now be another endeavour of mine, a project I'd like to call:

Towards Zero

Yes, plagiarising from New South Wales and Victoria's road safety campaigns, I'm hoping that I will be able to achieve parity with the photos that I have uploaded on Google Maps versus the photos that are actually public, and visible on POIs. As I have explained how to check the number of one's uploaded photos versus the photos that are made public, I will look back at 16 months of uploads, pinpoint the images that need to be re-uploaded and then make stringent tests to ensure they're public, forever.

We can still work on this together, by filtering the photos that either have a minuscule amount of views (which is a strong indicator of photos never being seen) or by finding the photos that have a pending or rejected status, if that is the way it works as it currently exists when uploading photospheres. Let's work on this together and make this issue a thing of the past.

Are you with me?

[VBenedict]

@Briggs  you are most certainly not the only one having all sorts of issues with photo uploads attaching or not attaching, uploading or not, and simply disappearing.

Or even whether they show up in your profile.

And mind you, I do not have data limits nor do I use wi-fi ever.

It is literally chaos. And what is most perplexing is seeing your images with other peoples names for the same POI.  

I urge Google & Google Maps to mitigate these issues as soon as possible.

LGs should not have to go through these issues.

[VBenedict]

@PaulPavlinovich. "The best things are happening to the best of us".

What is the reason behind you asking, "Do you only add photos or do you try an edit and add a photo?"

Does it make a difference? 

[PaulPavlinovich]

Hi @VBenedict I actually don't remember the context for that question, are you able to link me post so refresh me then perhaps I can answer your question.

Regards Paul

[VBenedict]

@Briggs@

"I'm trying to make an honest, truthful and beautiful representation of these listings..."

To make a beautiful presentation we would have to be able to insert and resize (on the fly) our images within the text 🤔 thus creating a graphically crafted review. 

At present all we can do is do our best to write an elegant and informative review. The photos appear to be an afterthought even when we write captions for our photos in an effort to associate them with our reviews.

At times our profile image does not even load along with our pictures.

Where did you hear about the photo upload limit?

[VBenedict]

@PaulPavlinovich

https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/Feedback-and-Feature-Requests/Towards-Zero-Why-don-t-my-photo-...