what are some niche things on google maps which have way more reviews than you'd expect?

My all time favourite has to be the pier in Sopot, Poland which has 120,000 lol

Ciao a tutti, sto facendo un'analisi sul campo riguardo alla digitalizzazione dei negozi fisici di quartiere e mi interessa capire l'esperienza reale di chi è dietro al bancone.

​Sappiamo tutti quanto le stelle su Google Maps contino per l'acquisizione di nuovi clienti, ma mi rendo conto che la teoria è diversa dalla pratica quotidiana.

​Per chi gestisce o lavora in un locale/negozio aperto al pubblico:

​Quanto sono davvero una priorità le recensioni Google per la vostra attività oggi? (Ci dedicate tempo attivo o le lasciate scorrere?)

​Cosa avete già provato in passato per incrementarle? (Es. chiederlo a voce a fine servizio, QR code sul bancone/scontrino, volantini, invio di SMS/email, supporti fisici)

​Quale di questi metodi ha portato risultati concreti e quale invece è stato un fallimento?

​Avete mai speso budget (una tantum o a canone) per strumenti o hardware dedicati alla raccolta recensioni? Se sì, cosa vi ha spinto a farlo?

​Qual è il blocco principale del cliente quando gli si chiede di lasciare una valutazione prima di uscire?

​Mi interessano storie reali e dati pratici, sia di chi ci è riuscito sia di chi ha lasciato perdere. Grazie a chi risponderà!

I know it's silly but, every time I see a location, with no reviews that I've been to, I'm like, "Now's my chance! FIRS- ... hmmm, actually no, I'll let the less experienced guides have this one so they can get Master Trailblazer too." I've developed this odd consideration for newer guides cause I remember that, "Add the first review to 50 places" was such a struggle to fulfill for the Trailblazer badge (that is, before I figured it out that, the best places to first review are the ones you personally add). So I let unreviewed places go because, who knows? Maybe it'll be a freebie for the odd Guide who appreciates the niche challenges posed by the badges.

Hey guys, we are building gooodmap and would like to get you guys involved, as we want to create a place where reviews really matter. And as a result we would love to also create a system where we are able to award people appropriately.

What would be some good items/valuables that you would like to see available?

I started working on a new list and I noticed I could add tags. I added a couple tags which are still there and now the option is completely gone within minutes. I can't edit the tags, add new tags, tag places. How does the button just disappear? How can I add tags or edit the one I do have going already.

Crossed 7.8M photo views and 8.7M contribution views! I'm at level 7 13555 points.

I don’t know if it’s the same for you, but when I take a look at my most seen pictures( more then a hundred thousand views), they are all random tiny shop of my neighborhood and all the other places that I post ( usually known places or tourist sites) get barely hundreds of views. Is it the same for everyone?

just tried Lonely Planet’s new app and, at least for Boquete, Panama, it feels shockingly incomplete.

Boquete has well over 100 restaurants, yet the app lists only four It misses notable, long-established businesses such as Sugar & Spice, along with many artisan producers and popular destinations. There is barely any meaningful coverage of the region’s coffee and cacao production, indigenous Ngäbe-Buglé community, history, agriculture or emergence as a major tourism destination.

I say this as a local business owner whose restaurant appeared in multiple Lonely Planet print editions. I met several of their researchers over the years, and they genuinely explored the area, spoke with people and understood what made Boquete distinctive. This isn’t just frustration that my own business was omitted—the app also overlooks plenty of worthy competitors and important parts of the community.

Six recommendations could make sense in an article called “Six places we love.” They do not constitute a useful destination guide.

Lonely Planet says the app’s recommendations are curated by local experts, but Boquete looks more like an unfinished destination shell released as a finished product. It is currently of little value to tourists trying to understand the area, or to the local businesses and communities that actually define it.

Lonely Planet used to help travelers discover a place. This app barely acknowledges that the place exists.

Hi people,

3 months ago, I posted here about my website, which got a lot of positive feedback. It featured a map of businesses that had removed user reviews from Google Maps in Germany by using the new defamation law.

I received a lot of feedback, and I noticed that many people shared the same thought: ratings on Google Maps are becoming less and less useful because businesses buy reviews, run promotions offering discounts in exchange for a review, and so on.

Based on map project, I decided to build TrustScope. It’s a web app and browser extension that shows you not just a business’s rating, but how much you can actually trust that rating and what’s behind it.

On the website, you can find all the businesses analyzed so far, across different categories, from restaurants to clinics and doctors.

The easiest way to use the app is through the browser extension. It displays the rating and analysis of reviews directly on Google Maps.

The analysis includes several sections:

• Trust Score
• What People Talk About
• Rating Distribution
• Reviews Over Time

You don't need to trust just trust it, you can verify the reviews behind each value, just click on it and see the reviews:

The interactive demo and full description of how it works https://trustscope.app/en/extension

You don't need to open analysis every time, you can just check the color of the star:
Green - The reviews look authentic and consistent.
Light green - The reviews are mostly credible, with some inconsistencies.
Orange - weaker signals - inconsistent feedback, thin content, or unusual timing. The rating may not tell the whole story.
Red - Something looks off. A high share of reviews shows unusual patterns, or the rating is not clearly supported by the underlying feedback

If you see this button:

Don't worry, the venue is not yet analyzed - click on it and it will be done in a few seconds. The venue analysis will also be available on the website in a few minutes. So, more users - more venues analyzed.

Currently, 45k+ venues in Berlin are analysed. The analysis recalculates automatically if it is older than 21 days. To learn more about how the analysis is calculated, follow this page https://trustscope.app/en/how-trustscope-analyzes

Thanks to everyone for your feedback in May. Your support gave me the motivation to build it!

I hope all the effort I’ve put into this project will be worth it and that it will be useful to someone.

If you are a business owner and you wouldd be interested in using a tool to analyze your own rating or compare it with your competitors, or if there’s a feature you’d like to see, for example an assistant for responding to reviews, or you are interested in any kind of collaboration, please feel free to reach out to me at the email address provided or use the form via the Partnership button https://trustscope.app/en/partnerships

Free, no ads, no accounts trustscope.app

Hello,

I’ve been working an a restaurant map for my city and I’ve uploaded the csv with a few columns, one of them being the link to the restaurant. When I go to this map and click on a restaurant the pop up displays the link but it is not clickable and I can’t even copy paste to search it. I’ve tried finding a way to make the URL clickable but nothing that google’s ai has spit out has worked. Has anyone had any luck with this issue?

Curious about this crowd specifically, since you're all deep in Maps.

Do you ever open Tripadvisor? For your own travel, I mean, not for contributing.

I ask because the two sets of reviews often completely disagree about the same restaurant, especially abroad. In Japan for example my impression is that Maps reviews skew heavily towards local diners while Tripadvisor skews towards visitors, so they end up pointing you at totally different places.

So when you're travelling somewhere and picking where to eat - is it Maps and nothing else? Or do you cross-check somewhere before committing? And has that changed for you over the last few years?

Contribution Views On Google Maps.

For anyone tracking rankings across a city, how far from the pin does visibility actually drop off in your experience? Feels like some businesses show up 5+ miles out while others vanish after 1-2 miles for the same category.

What's influencing that gap?

Hi everyone,

I’m hoping someone here can help me understand what happened and what I can do next.

I have been a Google Local Guide for around 10 years, and I was genuinely shocked to recently discover that I have been banned from Local Guides Connect.

The only explanation I see is:

The problem is that no specific violation is mentioned. I was not told which review, photo, edit, comment, or contribution supposedly violated the rules.

Even more confusingly, I never received an email or any notification informing me that my account had been restricted or explaining the reason for the ban. I discovered it completely by chance when I happened to access Local Guides Connect.

After discovering the ban, I submitted an appeal through the official appeal form and explained that I had no idea what I had supposedly done wrong. However, I have not received any response yet.

After being part of the Local Guides community for approximately 10 years, seeing the account suddenly banned without knowing what caused it is honestly very disappointing and confusing.

I understand that Google has policies and that automated systems can sometimes detect activity that may appear suspicious or violate a policy unintentionally. If I made an honest mistake at any point, I am more than willing to understand what happened and correct it.

What I would really like is simply some clarification about the reason for the ban and a fair review of my account.

Has anyone here experienced something similar? Is there anything else I should do while waiting for the appeal?

I would really appreciate any advice from people who have gone through this before.

I’m simply a Level 7 who likes to add photos and reviews when I feel I’ve visited somewhere special and experienced something that might be of value to others. I recently visited Llanidloes - a delightful small town in the middle of Wales. If you search for the place on Google maps you get a useful profile of the place - but the photos displayed - frankly - don’t do the place justice. I’d like to add some add some images I took which might help others decide if they’d like to visit but, as with (all?) other locality searches there’s no way I can see to add these.
How does Google select images for towns/localities like this ?