2022
[As an experienced Local Guide, I now sometimes come across inconsistencies or notice that errors have been made that I used to make myself when I started out. So I am publishing a few 'best practice' posts, in the hope it can help others.]
Every piece of information you ever added to Google maps and every edit you ever suggested was 100% perfectly accurate, right? Hang on: some of them were not? You sometimes make MISTAKES? Of course you do - and I will readily admit: so do I. We're all human, and that inevitably means we sometimes make mistakes.
As conscientious local guide you of course don't make those mistakes on purpose. They rather slip in by accident, but you only notice them once you have submitted the information. And then it sinks in: "OMG, I have made Google maps worse, by adding false information!" (especially if it is a suggested edit that was approved within seconds - I still get a bit of that awkward taste in my throat when I recall the first time it happened to me).
So: what to do to undo your wrongdoing? First and foremost: there is no 'undo' feature, so a 1-click solution is simply not available. But fixing the error is easy enough: you simply have to use the 'Suggest an edit' function again to upload the correct information.
One final thing: my personal experience suggests that it is best not to make the 'correction edit' immediately after the first edit, but to wait a couple of hours or days. Not that I make so much of those errors myself, but one time when I submitted the 'correction edit' immediately, this second edit got status 'Pending' after the incorrect info had been approved within seconds. (Perhaps consecutive edits of the same field with a short interval causes some 'suspicion' flag?). Another correction (of a house number for a place I had added), made several hours after the first one, when I had returned home and had researched it on the internet, was approved within seconds. (But then again: that could have been a coincidence - and I'm obviously not going to make more mistakes on purpose just to test that hypothesis.)
Other posts in this series:
Best Practice: Entering Opening hours
Best Practice: ALL CAPS / all lowercase
Best Practice: Correcting pin location
Best Practice: Choosing a more specific category
Best Practice: Submit changes one by one
Best Practice: Find the right zoom level
Best Practice: Reporting duplicates
Best Practice: Adding places without house number
Best Practice: Filtering 'Check the facts'
Best Practice: Find the right category
Best Practice: Create on mobile / Complete on desktop
Best Practice: Improve your reputation
Best Practice: The best order for suggesting edits
Best Practice: Get rid of legal names
Best Practice: Attempts to add bus stop or train station
Disclaimer: the practices described here as best practice are my personal interpretation, and I don't claim any level of official endorsement.
