If you don’t find a Local Guides badge on your profile and can’t sign in to post on Local Guides Connect, you may have been removed from the Local Guides program.
Why we remove accounts
To make sure others can find what they’re looking for on Google Maps, we often check that Local Guides contributions are helpful, accurate, and appropriate. Any Local Guides account can be removed for violating any of our rules and policies, even if it was unintentional.
Since our policies change from time to time, make sure you stay up-to-date with our current rules:
- Local Guides program rules and community policy
- Reviews, photos, and videos on Maps
- Mapping guidelines on Maps
Note: We can’t always let you know that you violated a policy before your account is removed. However, we do try our best to contact our most active Connect contributors when their contributions may violate a policy.
Examples
- Participating on Local Guides as a business
- Behaving inappropriately on Connect
- Posting duplicate reviews or photos
- Contributing offensive content or spam
- Adding fake locations
- Changing correct business names
- Adding unnecessary keywords
Appeal your removed account
If you think you’ve been wrongfully removed from Local Guides after reading the policies above and your account has been removed for more than 10 days, fill out the Appeal form to let us know you've been suspended.
Note: If your account has been removed, do not create another account to post on Connect. Creating alternate accounts is against our program rules and may result in another removal.
It may take up to 3 weeks for our team to investigate and privately respond to you. In most cases, we can’t provide details on why you were removed.