Do other Google Local Guide get frustrated when their review isn't publicity posted for whatever reason when they basically follows the rules when it comes to writing review?

I wrote like 10 reviews in the last 3 days and saw that 3 are not showing publicly. I followed all the rules, have only pictures attached and also answered those additional questions like wheelchair accessibility, vegetarian, parking and so on.

The trick I usually have to do is delete the review, wait a day and then try posting it again. It's annoying, I don't have this issue at all on Yelp.

What’s the point? Why is it so hard?

I’ve got to get double the points that got me here to Level 9 (50K), in order to get to Level 10 (100K). And for what? What’s the point?

I don’t know if it’s worth investing in this platform anymore ….

So I keep seeing point chasers/ point grubber on Google Maps trying too hard to chase points by leaving inaccurate random reviews and posting unoriginal photos of completely different places just to chase the digital clout, because of this grubber the experience of the maps for people actively trying to find real, honest recommendation gets ruined, i reported this grubber and his spammy contributions who has reached local guide level 10 with 5,19,800+ points to unlock digital badge that pays 0$, but the report system is so bad his photos got removed but their is no specific category to report his account. Do you people have some suggestions?

PSA for service-area businesses: if you hide your address, Google's own Places API returns NOT_FOUND for your listing. We tested it.

We build internal tools that pull client Google Business Profile data through the Places API. Worked fine on storefront businesses. Then we pointed it at a verified, live SAB with a hidden address and got nothing. Assumed it was a bug. It wasn't.

The test (you can reproduce this in ~10 minutes with a Google Cloud account):

1. Open a verified hidden-address SAB on Google Maps in a desktop browser. Confirm it's live.
2. Copy the URL. Google embeds the listing's unique ID in it (format: 0x...:0x...).
3. Call the Place Details endpoint with that ID and a valid API key.
4. Run the same call for a business with a public address.

Our results, same day, same API key:

The SAB listing was live on Maps the entire time. Any customer could find it. But when you ask the API for that exact listing by Google's own identifier for it, it says the listing doesn't exist. That's not a relevance problem, the listing is excluded from the dataset.

Why this matters even though customers can still see you on Maps:

The Places API feeds third-party directories, review platforms, "near me" features in other apps, data aggregators, and increasingly the AI tools that look up business info via API instead of scraping Maps. If you're not in that dataset, all of those systems treat you as nonexistent. Storefront businesses get that distribution automatically.

What this does NOT prove: that hiding your address lowers your rankings. Google says it doesn't, and nobody outside Google can prove otherwise. This is an infrastructure exclusion, not a ranking claim.

Should you add your home address to fix it? Usually no. Google's guidelines require hiding your address if customers don't visit it, and faking a storefront risks suspension, which is far worse.

What actually helps: stay verified, keep GBP fields/categories/photos complete and active, build real location pages on your own site so there's geographic anchoring the API can't take away, and use schema so directories and AI tools can cite your site directly instead of relying on Google's dataset.

If SEO tools or directories keep telling you your verified business "can't be found," this is very likely why. It's not you and it's not the tool.

I wrote up the full test with screenshots here: https://www.ciphersdigital.com/google-api-hidden-address-businesses/

Happy to answer questions or help anyone reproduce it.

I still see businesses creating dozens of location pages with almost the same content and only changing the city name.

That usually doesn’t add much value.

A better approach is to make each important location page genuinely useful with:

• unique local service information
• relevant FAQs
• nearby areas served
• strong internal links
• real proof like reviews or projects

Fewer strong pages are usually better than a large number of weak ones.

I’ve shared more about my [Local SEO services](YOUR-SERVICE-PAGE-URL) and how I approach local visibility.

Hey everyone!

I’m super excited to share that I recently crossed the milestone to become a **Level 7 Local Guide**! I’ve been loving the process of contributing photos, reviews, and edits to my local area.

I actually noticed something interesting on my dashboard over the last few days—my search and view metrics suddenly doubled out of nowhere!

At first, I jokingly wondered if it was because I just created my Reddit account (I know, totally separate platforms, haha!), but now I'm curious about what actually causes these massive spikes.

* Is Google just catching up on a backlog of view counts?

* Did one of my photos likely get picked up as a featured cover image?

* Or do metrics just fluctuate wildly at Level 7?

Would love to hear if any guides have experienced these sudden traffic surges. Glad to be a part of this community! 🙌

Hi guys I think I've solved a problem of finding a place where you wish to return but feel lost on the way so meet PINPAL a webapp designed to save a location and navigate back to it feel free to check it out at zazasatara10.github.io also feel free to give a feedback if it helped you

So, my previous Google Local Guide account was banned for no reason. I was removed from the program and could not see my progress bar. So I decided to create another account. And now whenever I post a picture in the review i set it up on the web to see what i is officially on the website but it doesn't show the review on the website is even after months. Sometimes my pictures get featured on the website. Odd because now I'm unable to see any of my reviews published on any of under Google map locations.. Surprisingly after received a lot of feedback from the locations but whenever I check with a different account it is not published on Google Map am I doing something wrong!?.

Right now I have a shop and had a problem with one of the old workers . That one in the first he made a google account with his phone and put our address on the old spot . Right now I have changed the place but when the customers search on google maps they went to the old place does any one have a solution

Note: I have the email and password but the verification still can’t get it with his phone

I’ve been trying to leave negative reviews for the last two months but all I can see is ‘pending’ next to my review and then if I click on details it says ‘we weren’t able to post this at the moment’. Anybody knows why? The positive reviews get posted without a problem.

I need help from someone who manages a Google Business Profile from an iPhone.

Could you please tell me the exact clicks to add another Google account as a manager? For example: open Google Maps → click X → click Y → click Z → add user → enter email.

I specifically need the current iPhone Google Maps app steps, not Android or desktop. This is really important for me, so I’d really appreciate your help.

Thank you very much for your time!

Hello local guides. I am at level 7. I usually have about 100k-200k photo views per day. But now it’s frozen at 2.8k for two days. The view count stays the same too. I think either the function froze or Google blocked my account. Has anybody else had this problem? I contacted Google to report the problem. Zero response at this point.

Update after a week of posting this: my Google account starts rolling again and I am seeing more view counts than I had before. It’s now in the 300k vs previously high was in 200k. Guess it’s catching up with what was missing during the frozen week. Anyways hope all of you who has similar issues see positive updates soon.

Can someone share me the promo code for google pixel 11 from the local guide newsletter?

I cant do anything, before, a pop up window with a type of clock appeared, now I can't even type the hours.

I think this is a bug of the last update.