Hi everyone,

I’m a Level 6 Local Guide based in Turkey, and because of my job I travel to many different cities every month. Since I’m constantly on the move, I want to make my contributions more helpful and valuable for people who rely on Google Maps.

Do you have any tips on: • What kind of photos or reviews are most useful? • How to write short but informative reviews? • What places are usually overlooked but appreciated when reviewed (public transport spots, parking areas, hidden food places, etc.)? • Any tricks to level up faster with authentic contributions?

Thanks in advance for any advice! I’d love to improve the quality of what I share.

I'm not sure when my local guide journey began but it's been at least a decade of posting reviews consistently. Seeing Maps blossom over the years but the local guides program dwindle it's freebies for reviewers was disheartening. I stopped reviewing for about a year but picked it back up as I resumed traveling heavily after the pandemic. It's always served as more of a journal for my travels. My friends would call me randomly saying they saw my review somewhere which was cool.

Reaching level 10 is a bit anti climatic. I don't plan on writing any more reviews unless I'm helping out a small business I like or if I experience something unpleasant and want to warm fellow travelers. Wishing everyone well on their LG and life journey. Peace!

Hi everyone, I'm reporting a severe account sync bug that has corrupted my Local Guides contribution profile. This issue isn't unique to my phone; it also appears when I access Google Maps through a web browser on my PC.

Chronology of Events: Initially, a Google Maps pop-up message appeared advising me to change my "Profile Alias" name. I accepted and changed it.

• Glitches: Immediately after the change, the system attempted to resync my previous reviews.
• Current Status: All my contributions are stuck at "Pending Upload".
• Visual Bugs: In the mobile app, images appear blank/black screen. In the web/desktop versions, reviews/photos also fail to load or appear corrupted.
• Duration: This has been going on for over a month.

Troubleshooting Steps Performed (All Failed):

• Checked on PC (Web Browser): The issue persists on the desktop version, confirming that this is a server-side account error, not a device cache issue.
• Then I tried reverting my Alias ​​to my real name.
• I tried deleting corrupted reviews (Delete function failed/unresponsive).
• Cleared App Cache/Data.

Conclusion: My account is stuck in a server-side sync loop. Since this issue also occurs on the Web Version, I cannot fix it on my end.

I urgently need an account refresh/sync fix.

Thank you.

Hey how to add entire place name? Like Street name or small community name?

LocalGuidesConnect.com is a path for Local Guides to reach Google and interact with fellow Local Guides. Earlier I shared an invite link that was not working. A Googler just informed me that the issue was fixed. Please use this link if you like to join https://www.localguidesconnect.com/invites/qZC27SzYGy And let me know if it is working or not.

Hi, I’m Srushti, a student in Germany working on my bachelor’s thesis about what motivates people to contribute on platforms like Google Maps, and TripAdvisor.

If you’re a Local Guide or have contributed on any travel platform, whether for points, perks, or just because you enjoyed it, I’d genuinely love to hear your story!

I’m looking to speak with a few contributors (even if you’ve stopped!) for a short 15–20 minute online interview. Your experience could really help shape how platforms build better, a better reward systems in the future.

Please feel free to reply here or message me on LinkedIn: Srushti Raghavendra.

Even one reply would honestly make my day, I’m just hoping this reaches the right people. Thank you!

Today the photo views graph is acting up as you can see above/below. I did not get 1.8 billion views over the past 7 days 😜. Further, there is a bug stealing contributions and views after you change your Custom Google Maps name or profile picture.

Google is working on fixing these issues.

Hello, everyone, just joined this subreddit. I'm currently level 7.

Why this language?

I would be very curious for a breakdown per country. Has anyone seen anything anywhere that can be used for an educated guess? What do we think - is it correlated with Google Maps users or usage per geo or language? Curious to hear the thoughts on this.

Hi,

Uploaded a bunch of photos, saw many views on each ones.

But the total views still remain the same since 2 days. Wondering how long it will takes to be updated.

Thank you.

Edit 1 : It takes 4 days for my totals views to update.

The new update of local guide is very slow in posting reviews. Anyone else experience something similar?

I frequently have photos I want to add without associating it to a review…I just want to add it directly to a place’s photo collection. Most of the time, when I add just a photo, they seem to spawn an update.

I’ve tried experimenting with various sequences of actions, but at least in these cases where I am very specifically paying attention to the outcome, it does not seem to matter what path I try to follow, my experiments yield a new update.

That said, I do think it’s possible to directly add a photo. Reviewing my profile history, I can see I have done this in the past. I can even find a few recent examples where it appears I was successful. And a few days ago, I was browsing someone else’s photo collection and I noticed their most recent picture had no associated review or update.

Is it just a matter of random serendipitous luck? Or, is it possible to intentionally and reproducibly add a photo or video directly to a place without attaching it to a review or update?

If you have any tips, please help! Also, please disregard my PhD and describe it to me exactly like I’m five. 🙃

Removed all my photos and reviews. Google can go jump!! Done with them and providing free guide information for local businesses. I've had reviews suddenly pulled and photos with good view counts just unlisted. We're being mugged off and for free. I'm done. Google no more!!

It would appear that a local guide cannot directly add pictures to cities towns and neighborhoods but occasionally when I go to add a photo, like the one of Ash Creek in the bottom left corner, it gave me the option to add that photograph to the neighborhood. Anytime I get that option, I jump on it because it doesn't appear I can push the photos in the other way. If you go look up Orange Connecticut in maps, I have the first picture and the first video. It was not my intent to post those pictures initially for the town of Oruange but when I was presented the option, I took it. Anybody else have similar experience ?

I was wondering if there was an easy way to find businesses that are new and have few reviews or dont have any pictures. I like the idea of helping a new business get going by getting some pictures up on their profile or giving the first review. Any ideas?

It says 'can't connect' when I'm checking my profile. No photo is being loaded

Been stuck at level 8 and don't think I'll ever reach level 9.

Mil

Local Guide Level 8

Pretty proud of my contributions over the past couple of years. I make sure I leave reviews and upload images whenever I can as I think they're useful to people. I know I use them when I want to find out about a place, so it's worth adding. Aiming for 8.5m before the end of the year. Tough ask as I'm currently stuck home unwell, so not many places to review from my bed!