Hello fellow Local Guides,
Have any of you spent serious time looking at the Explore tool available from the sidebar of Google Maps app?
I am wondering how the ratings info of Local Guides are being used to influence these dynamically generated lists of business recommendations to the general users of Google Maps. It would seem logical that there be some connection between all of the good work of our community and the top recommended places, and for some of the categories I think there is a pretty straight-line link between the "suggested questions" Local Guides can answer for points about a place, but for other lists (particularly the "Where the locals eat" list) I have no clue about how these lists are being generated... While attempting to use this tool for myself, the list of recommended places was pretty far outside my comfort zone, in fact some of the places I would probably actively avoid instead of seeking them out, and would never recommend them for other folks (like tourists) - this made me quite skeptical about the quality of these lists.
What experiences have you had with the "Explore" function for finding new places?
Right now the Explore tool only really allows a user to look at lists of places to eat or drink, but I imagine that in the future this will be expanded to include other items like historical/cultural places of interest, which is where I really hope this feature gets built out to accommodate local guide intelligence
2022
