Google keeps Maps up-to-date with the help of “Local Guides” and rewards contributors through a tier system with various perks. A small change sees settings for Local Guides moved out of Google Maps to a new site.
On the web, maps.google.com/localguides allows you to see your points score and a breakdown of how many reviews, photos, answers, etc. you’ve contributed. It also allows you to quickly review without having to first pull up a listing. There’s also a “Connect” tab, but this opens a separate community website.
This page also has a link to “Settings” where you can “Change your city,” determine what emails you receive, and exit the program. In a quick email, Google explains that Local Guides are getting a new settings page.
The new site — google.com/localguides/settings — is not part of Google Maps and only houses the first two controls:
- Update your location for a more relevant Local Guides experience: Today, we send you locally relevant emails and rewards based on the city selection you made when you first joined the program.
- Control the emails you receive: change the types of emails you receive, or want to stop receiving Local Guide emails entirely
Meanwhile, opt-out is becoming its own separate site that’s not linked to in the new settings. Given this direction, it’s possible that maps.google.com/localguides will eventually be replaced entirely, as much of the functionality is already built into Maps at google.com/maps/contrib.
Google did not specify yesterday when the settings changeover is occurring as the old Local Guides page is still available.
More about Local Guides:
- Google hosting an exclusive Headspace meditation for Local Guides today
- [Update: More countries] Google is sending out 20% Google Store discount codes to Local Guides in the UK
- Google Maps selecting Local Guides for AR navigation ‘early access’ on both Android and iOS
Author: Abner Li
Source: 9TO5Google
