Google-maps – Where have all the Maps reviews gone

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Over the years, I have posted a few reviews of places I've visited on Google Maps. Occasionally, I like to look back at my reviews, to remind myself where I've been. I'm aware that these reviews are now a part of Google+, but when I look at my list of reviews, only 3 of them appear. Google+ indicates that I have a total of 15 reviews, but clicking the "More" link at the bottom of the page does nothing.

Is that page's function just broken at the moment? Have my reviews been lost to time as a part of the new Google Maps roll out (or for some other arcane reason)? Is there another way to view or search for all the reviews I've posted?

Best Answer

This is an old question, but the answer is still actual so I'm posting this for the benefit of future readers.

It appears that Google Reviews can be deleted for many reasons (source):

  1. Your G+ account is empty or shows little activity before/after the review
  2. You left a negative reviews and the business owner asked for its deletion
  3. Your review contains URLs
  4. The same review appears elsewhere online
  5. You are the business' owner, an employee, or an ex-employee (article)
  6. The review was posted from the same IP address of the business
  7. The review was posted from the same IP address of other reviews for the same business
  8. The review was posted from the IP address of a SEO company
  9. The review was posted from a totem (tablet, computer etc.) for customers at the business' place
  10. You tried repeatedly to review the same place
  11. The business has an abnormal number of reviews, or a high number of reviews in a short time frame
  12. Pretty much whatever Google feels like at the moment

Some of my reviews have been deleted, too. It's very annoying.

Note the point #2: A business owner can unilaterally decide to delete a bad review, and even a bad star rating with no review. I've seen businesses systematically removing all reviews with less than four stars. When you give a star rating which gets deleted, the stars rating still appears when you look at the place from your Google account but it's not shown publicly anymore nor taken into account for the average rating. (See also this article.)

Hence I'd recommend not to bother writing negative Google reviews anymore, because they will disappear. You can still assign star ratings as a personal reminder of how crappy or awesome the place was, just for you.

As a consequence, Google Maps ratings are unreliable and misleading, so you should not consider them as guide neither wasting time writing reviews on Google. Rather, use sites that actually provide a service to customers and value their reviews - such as Yelp (businesses), TripAdvisor (hotels, bars, restaurants), or GlassDoor (companies). All these sites don't allow reviewed places to remove unfavorable reviews, so they are much more worthy.

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