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Best Practice: Reporting duplicates

[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.]

When you come across two (or sometimes even more, but for the sake of simplicity I will refer to 2 in the rest of this post) mentions of the same point of interest (POI), you should report one of them as duplicate. You do this by going to 'Suggest an edit' and then indicate 'Place is permanently closed', whereby you select as reason 'Duplicate of another place'. So far, so good. But this can still be a tricky thing to do, because you need to decide which of the two is the one you want to report as duplicate.

 

Image by Bru-nO on PixabayImage by Bru-nO on Pixabay

In some cases this is quite easy to decide: one of them has no reviews, no photos, and the pin is located 50m away from the actual location, while the other has 12 reviews, 6 photos and is located correctly. But in other cases, both POIs have reviews and photos, so which one should you pick then?


Fortunately the good news is: it doesn't really matter. Unlike most of the edits that local guides suggest, the process to deal with reported duplicates always involves human intervention. Someone at Google will have a look at the duplicate you reported (at some point - it can take a while, as the list is rumoured to be quite long), and instead of simply keeping one of them and deleting the other, the 2 POIs are merged to make sure all relevant information is preserved. So the one that eventually remains, will e.g. 'inherit' the reviews the other one had.


Keeping this in mind, the best practice for duplicate POIs is to make sure that the person who will eventually have a look at the reported duplicate has an easy job when looking at the 2 POIs. So, for both of them: check that the name is correct (and adapt if needed), move incorrect pins to the correct location, make sure both have the most appropriate category, etc. Depending on the information that the algorithms can detect when you report the duplicate, you might see a screen that lets you choose which POI is the correct one for the duplicate you are reporting (including a 'none of the above' option). Obviously this information is also very helpful to the Google team processing duplicates.

 

An additional benefit of doing this is that those edits will bring you some points (especially if you report them one by one) - as reporting duplicates as such does not bring points.

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: Adding places without house number

Best Practice: Correcting errors you accidentally made

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.

Check out LetsGuide Podcast | #LGCTM | Please always @Mention me so I see your reply
14 comments
Level 7

Re: Best Practice: Reporting duplicates

Was thinking about that but guess those who have the business that owns the restaurant sell want to show up on maps. So tried just to switch name of the places

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Re: Best Practice: Reporting duplicates

As a new feature seems to have been introduced that allows LGs to indicate which place is the 'correct' one for the reported duplicate (as kindly pointed out by @JosephDewey in this post), I have adapted the text accordingly.

Check out LetsGuide Podcast | #LGCTM | Please always @Mention me so I see your reply
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Re: Best Practice: Reporting duplicates

@JanVanHaver

Your best practices posts are very welcome.

I have also some experience, but missing the knowledge... All is based on feelings who are sometimes right, but in other cases  unmasked by knowledge.

https://goo.gl/maps/6ascMbAtC6r
Level 10

Re: Best Practice: Reporting duplicates

@JanVanHaver Awesome!!!! This and your other posts are excellent resources! Thanks for keeping them updated!

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Re: Best Practice: Reporting duplicates

I still have 4 or 5 topics on my to do list, so more work ahead for me 😀

 

bitmoji-20180520084805.png

 

 

 

Check out LetsGuide Podcast | #LGCTM | Please always @Mention me so I see your reply
Level 10

Re: Best Practice: Reporting duplicates

Connect Moderator

Re: Best Practice: Reporting duplicates

As with so many things on Google maps: just wait and see 🤣

Check out LetsGuide Podcast | #LGCTM | Please always @Mention me so I see your reply
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Re: Best Practice: Reporting duplicates

@JosephDewey The next one is online:

 

Best Practice: Create on mobile / Complete on desktop
https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/Mapping-Your-World/Best-Practice-Create-on-mobile-Complete-on-...

Check out LetsGuide Podcast | #LGCTM | Please always @Mention me so I see your reply
Level 10

Re: Best Practice: Reporting duplicates


@JanVanHaver wrote:

As a new feature seems to have been introduced that allows LGs to indicate which place is the 'correct' one for the reported duplicate (as kindly pointed out by @JosephDewey in this post), I have adapted the text accordingly.


You can (and should) update your first post, Jan! I'm not sure if you know but you can "edit" your post using the three dot menu at the top right corner of it. Also note that this does not work on desktop (or at least I could not find it). I don't know about iOS but it certainly works on Android.