Give a "Thumbs Up" to Helpful Reviews

[Corrie]

Feature Request: "We take writing reviews seriously and want to up-vote or +1 helpful, good quality reviews."

Found a review that was particularly helpful? Now you can give it a thumbs up to let others know! 

This feature is currently available on desktop and Google Maps for Android, with iOS coming soon.

Need a refresher on how to write useful, high quality reviews on Google Maps? Check out this post here on Connect or review our policies in our Help Center. 

Tips for writing great reviews

• Be informative and insightful: Be specific and relevant to the place you’re reviewing, and describe what other visitors are likely to experience. Highlight what makes the place special, and try to share something novel and new. From signature dishes to secret sale racks, reviews should reveal the unique experiences that places offer.
• Keep it real: Be authentic. Review your own experience, and explain why you liked or disliked the place. Try to be as accurate as possible, and include both the positive and negative aspects of your visit.
• Be respectful: Not every experience with a place is going to be perfect. Sometimes you’ll want to share negative feedback. Even if you’re frustrated, make sure your criticism is constructive. Business owners often use feedback to improve their offerings.
• Reviews not General Commentary: At times certain locations may become the subject of larger public debate or conversation due to recent news coverage or current events. While we respect and value your opinion, Local Reviews are not meant for social or political commentary. We think there are other forums that are more suited to those kinds of conversations, like blogs or social networks. Please write about your firsthand experience with the place and not general commentary on the place in relation to recent news.
• Write with style: People will pay attention when you write thoughtful reviews. Keep them readable and avoid excessive capitalization or punctuation. Use good grammar, check your spelling, and avoid profanity. Choose the right length - a paragraph is great. Be creative and have fun!

[Heymull]

I like part of the idea that "IL" submitted about letting venue owners know a Local Guide thinks an improvement should be made, without letting the general public know. Local Guides should be able to communicate via the app, so it is fast and easy. The owner or manager of the restaurant or museum or fishmonger or pastry shop would be tipped off that there was a potential problem, and the general public would not see a negative comment. However, I am not in favor of allowing the venue to be able to give a reward to the Local Guides commenter. Rewards will be gamed, like they are everywhere else on the web.

I have seen clear evidence of a Local Guide who is gaming the system now, and that is with the current Local Guides arrangment. Imagine if there were coupons or discounts involved. It would be a detriment to the Local Guides ecosystem if our credibility was called into question because a certain percentage of Local Guides were gaming this suggested comment-reward feature.

[KAbhishek]

Hi @Corrie

   This feature is very good for all LG to help them all parameter But  sometime business owner asked them how to removed bad comment.as per good experience sharing on Google review then Give a Thugs Up is all right to helpful for merchant. But somebody type a negative comments,wrong feedback sharing on Google reviews then also Thumbs Up showing. So we wanted to be a how to removed negative feedback or comments. A lots of Business Merchant and Manager asked them these types of questions and he take a big issued.So Please do help for all LG.

Thanks

[IvanLondon]

@Heymull , @Linda_F, @MikeN, @JSA

Hi guys, thanks a lot for your comments about my suggestion to take reviews and communication between business owners and Local Guides potentially to the next level. I hear your point and so I've removed that potential reward element from the idea description. Thanks again!

[Corrie]

@KAbhishek If a business owner thinks that a review is fraudulent, they can flag it and report it to Google. They can control many aspects of their listing by claiming their business (free) on Google Maps - including replying to reviews on their page. We do not currently allow people to remove content just because it is unflattering. If we did, you can imagine every business owner would remove every negative review regardless of whether it was true or not. 

[Corrie]

@Heymull if you have evidence of a Local Guide who is violating our program rules or Google policies, please report it privately to the Local Guides team. 

[Sinval]

@Corrie how should we report those users? By email? 

[Anonymous]

I like IL's suggestion to be able to see our reviews that were the most helpful. And being able to thumb up a review is a great idea. I've seen a lot of helpful reviews and have tried or skipped a place based on them.

[KAbhishek]

Hi @Corrie

Thanks for your Valuable information.

Thanks

[Corrie]

@Sinval Yes, youc an send an email with all of the details and links to localDASHguidesATgoogleDOTcom

[IvanLondon]

@Anonymous Thanks!

[Sinval]

@Corrie , finally I discover how to report users that are violating our program rules. In one of the communities I saw that we should report comment by comment, but that was extremely hard to do.

[Corrie]

@Sinval Reporting bad content in Google Maps is preferable. Please do not contact us about every person with reviews or content you don't think is "good enough" to be a Local Guide. Please only contact us about egregious violations of Google policy or local laws. Thanks!

[Sinval]

@Corrie, an user that puts only word in the reviews, and always the same word, should be considered an egregious violation?

[Corrie]

@Sinval That sounds like a spammer to me, and I would encourage you to report them as such. 

[Sinval]

@Corrie, thanks. Some spammers did that to get the 1TB space.

[Shinchao]

That's a good idea !

[neavilag]

Hi, I don´t have this features nor in maps or in Maps on Android even I have the latest version of Maps and I am a beta tester, any toughts ?

No Thumb up optionlatest version Oct 12, 2016

On Chrome web maps

[Sinval]

@neavilag, please check if you're logged with your Local Guides account.

[neavilag]

Hi @JSA actually I am since all my points are under that account, but thanks for making me point out that, since I have another Gmail account configured in my phone, that I only have 3 reviews, I am not a LG and with That I have the options...  see the gif, options appear for the non LG account and not for the LG LV 5 account. 

regards

[Sinval]

@neavilag, I see... So, my last hypothesis, I think that you should reinstall the app. 

[neavilag]

Hi, @JSA, the maps cannot be un installed is part of Nougat, I uninstall the updates, delete the other user and only keep the LG user but still cannot see the feature. is something with my user ???

[Sinval]

@neavilag, do you have another device where you can test that?

[Sovon]

A must needed and Most Helpful feature. So no more confusing on which review to believe. Best best best feature!!!

[AngelaLocal]

a+++

[neavilag]

@Sinval, hi, I am affraid if more of a issue related to the user 😞 same behavior under Chrome or Safari... what can I do ?

Safari

[Sinval]

Hello @neavilag!

Well, I only have one more hypothesis, please check here, if you are signed in the programme! If notice that you're, I think that you should send an email for this adress (local-guidesatgoogledotcom) reporting the problem.

[Hákon]

Why not add something similar for photos. The only thing we see now is the number of views for each photo. 

[VIJIN]

Best idea.

It will be helpful in filtering, to get the correct review .

[Visioner]

Very nice!

[ArjunK]

great feature !!

[AlbertoP]

Los comentarios deben de ser Constructivos ya sea para que mejoren algo del lugar o negocio ó para elogiar lo que hacen bien y los usuarios que consultan puedan decidir y revisar si ya se mejoro lo que estaba mal..

[SHTalukder]

This is great idea. Now we can essay to work then before google mapping. Hope new more option coming for us.  

[彥豐胡]

很不錯

[SalahAlhajri]

So helpful ,  

Thanks alot 

I hope that we could get or showed on our profile  the statistics of how many thumbs up  we have received , 

I also hope that same thing will happens to business photos ,  i spend  too much time to capture and upload my pictures on map with good quality . 

Regards

[JawwadFarooq]

Very nice idea.

And a simple question: Why iOS App is always kept behind in terms of releasing new features?

[ViktorU]

Было бы хорошо как то стандартизировать отзывы о посещённых местах при написани отзыва добавить пункты 1-местоположение 2-оформление места(ремонт чистота)  3 отношение персонала 4 что понравилось или не понравилось и в конце личное. Я думаю это помогло начинающим пользователям.с уважением Виктор

[BuckL]

Great...love this! 

[SusanK]

Great idea! Keep those ratings and overviews of locations coming!  It's encouraging to get thumbs up for a heartfelt review - and the more the merrier!  Explore & explain YOUR corner of the world to encourage visitors, share a fun favorite hangout, or point out a great location with new community ideas!

[IrvanD]

with more thumbs up then the review can go up dan shown in first place,right ? its mean who has the most thumbs up then he can be in first place review in that place? #CMIIW

[kakaks]

saran yang bermanfaat, terima kasih banyak

[EmmeS]

I agree that "it would be cool and pretty innovative to enable Local Guides (as well as all other users) to send a private message to business owners that no one else can see and give them that chance to improve their product or service. And it would be nice to give Local Guides an option to send this constructive feedback anonymously to be 100% honest."

I just reviewed a clean, small and simple restaurant. I would have given 5 stars for the soulful food and service but gave 4 for simple elements that in fact do need improvement. These improvements would increase accessibility, experience and reputation. how do i communicate this shy of returning and having a quick private meeting with the head of their operations?

I would use a private message feature that allows me to send constructive feedback to the commercial entity

.

[YK1001]

@IrvanD,

In Desktop Maps, there are 4 sortings available while reading Reviews

- Most helpful

- Most recent

- Highest Score

- Lowest

I hope the same will be avilable in Android Maps soon.

[Ale5ander]

Btw it's already worked in iOS. Finally. Missions - the last one thing that we need on iOS 😛

@EmmeS it's already launched in beta - https://support.google.com/business/answer/7177958

[Anonymous]

Great Idea, It's very Useful and Helpful

[LynnWrayD]

Thanks for the useful information CorrieD. I am wondering if my reviews says what needs to be said. Some places are already review saturated but if I love the place I try to offer a different slant on the review. Many reviews are shallow (i.e. "Great Place!") which is useless. Overly gushy reviews don't seem sincere. I am trying to be fair and balanced. Certainly would appreciate an assessment of my reviews. I haven't received a single "thumbs up" except from myself. I did this thinking it may encourage someone to respond. But I am not discouraged. Yet. 

[Zeds]

 Hi Everybody,

Yelp...as much as I don't like their model ...have had the private and public message to and from business owner to reviewer for ages.Some owners of businesses I have reviewd on Yelp have virually begged me to give them a 2nd chance after I have posted a low rated review.Of course on Google maps we can all see responses from business owners to our posted reviews but I don't feel I need to respond back to them...they are generally thanking me for a gret review.I think the most important thing we can all do collectively is to identify and report Spam reviews and photos so these serial offenders can be banned altogether from posting anything ever again on Google maps because these pests are devaluing our contributions.  

[Zeds]

Hi Everybody,

It's not hard to write a helpful review as you can see from this recent Local Guides email sent to me.It comes down to extremes....not wanting to sound like a robot or not needing to write a short novel.Some places like a Lowe's Home Improvement are difficult to write much about unless by a miracle you find a worker who is really helpful so then I try to get their name and name check them in my review.As for restaurants,cafes,coffee shops and eateries there has to be more than just a photo of the front facade and a 5 star rating with no comment added.That's unacceptable and is wasting everybody's time.I never add a photo unless I have written a review.I have never posted just a rating or a photo with just a rating.

My basic tick sheet for writing a restaurant /cafe review is degrees of the following...

1.Street appeal.

2.Ease of parking nearby

3.Warm welcome from staff

4.Comfortable seating

5.Easy to understand menu

6.Helpful menu advice from server

7.Wait time for meal orders to arrive

8.Meal presentation

9.Attentiveness or lack of by our server

10.Noise factor...inside or outside...or both.

11.Was it a unique experience?

12.Was it fun?

13.Decor inside 

14.Would I come back?

Cheers,

Zed star.

Pretty impressive I would say for one week.

[MahmudPolash]

great  thing  it will increase  enthusiasms @Corrie