Ask HN: Google Maps flagging every review? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Google Maps flagging every review?

4 pointsshafyy4 comments

I've had my Google account for over a decade and have been posting reviews on Google Maps for a long time. Since a couple of months, every review I post gets flagged automatically and then I need to click "submit appeal" so that (I'm guessing) a human reviews it and it's then published.

However, today, they declined my review without any chance for appeal:

"A moderator determined that your review doesn't follow our policies. Your review isn't posted."

And then there's a link to their content policy: https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/7400114#fake_engagement&zippy=%2Cfake-engagement

I almost always give 5 stars (I don't bother reviewing otherwise) and often write a few sentences (sometimes I just give stars).

Has anyone else been seeing similar behavior?

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Not sure if this is what is really happening but if someone almost always gives 5 stars, that sounds like they might be getting paid for reviews.

Btw I have also started give mostly positive reviews only as negative reviews can come back haunt me (stories about businesses suing people for negative reviews).

Yes, maybe. But they should see, based on my account history, that it's absolutely not a bot or fake account. And it's not like I review stuff every day, like 1 - 2 per month. It should be possible to only give 5 star reviews without being denied as fake...

Few months ago had a similar story. I gave a negative review regarding a car rental service abroatd. These people literally swindled me. Long story short, I wrote a really long description of the whole story. Explained with dates and what the customer reps said on our numerous calls. Few days later the review had been flagged for "breaking the Google therms of reviewing". I submited an appeal on my suspended review. Few days later it has been confirmed that the review will be deleted. Well, why are there reviews if people can't freely express their opinions? More so, why this review has been rejected?! I submited during the years hundres of different reviews - both positive and negative.

I also mostly give 5 star reviews, but haven’t experienced this.

For me Google Reviews are a top make or breakpoint when deciding a hotel. I can imagine other people doing the same Hence there is an incentive for hotels to game the system

I recently moved to Phuket and many very mediocre hotels (or plain shabby hotels) get very high ratings (4.5+) and very positive reviews. Hotel competition is cut throat here so hotels definitely have an incentive to game the system.

TLDR Maybe Google notices fraud and is trying to solve in a clunky way

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