In July last year Google revamped their Local Guides program, changing how many points you collect for various activities and the level structure of the program. In the new system there are now 10 Local Guide Levels with various rewards and numerous ways to earn points.
Starting today, and rolling out over the next few weeks, a review on Google Maps will now net you 10 points, instead of the old 5 points per review. Additionally, if you write what Google calls a detailed review, eg any review longer than 200 characters, you’ll now get 10 bonus points for a total of 20 points for each long review.
For those of you interested in climbing the Local Guides ranks a little faster this may be good news, at the moment it’s unclear exactly what climbing those ranks exactly does for you, but that doesn’t stop some people trying to anyway. From Google’s perspective it’s clear they are trying to drive more people to complete reviews, and more detailed reviews to improve the quality and quantity of reviews on Google Maps.
I’ve checked my points balance and it doesn’t seem to have take affect as yet for me, however the change will only net me 805 extra points, which isn’t a lot in the scheme of things. You can check you balance here.
The table below outlines all of the ways you can currently collect points for the local guides program.
| Maps contribution | Points earned |
|---|---|
| Review | 10 points per review |
| Detailed review | 10 bonus points per review |
| Rating | 1 point per rating |
| Photo | 5 points per photo |
| Video | 7 points per Video |
| Answer | 1 point per answer |
| Response to Q&A | 3 points per response |
| Edit | 5 points per edit |
| Place added | 15 points per place added |
| Fact checked | 1 point per fact checked |
If you’re not a Local Guide and you want to sign up, head on over to the Local Guides site and sign-up.
Pretty sure that climbing the ranks gets you certain gifts from Google. I got given fee 100 gigs of Google drive from reaching a certain level.
I missed out on that reward but did get 3 months subscription to the New York Times online which I didn’t use much but got some interesting notifications. I think they have also offered 3 months of Play music subscription too.