In a lot of the material you find about Local Guides a number of terms and abbreviations pop up time and again. Here’s a list that helps you figure out what exactly is meant with them.
Abbreviations
The short forms you’ll see all over Connect and social media.
Google Maps
Local guide(s)
Local Guides Connect
Local Guides Clean The Map
Local Guides Clean The World
Local Guides World
Point of interest
StreetView
StreetView Trusted Photographer
User Generated Content
Terms
What the words actually mean, in alphabetical order.
360
A picture whereby you can move the cursor around in all directions, showing the point where it was made in 360°.
Badge
A sign on your Local Guide profile (the number in the star indicates your level) or on Local Guides Connect (indicating achievements on Connect such as the number of Likes given or received).
Check the facts
The part of the LG program where you can check contributions submitted by others; you can access it on the Your Contributions page.
Connect
Short for Local Guides Connect.
Connect Live
A yearly event organized by Google where a selected number of local guides are invited by Google (with all expenses paid by Google).
Connect Moderator
Moderator on Connect who is not a Google employee, but a volunteering Local Guide, selected by Google (based mainly on previous contributions on the platform).
Meet the Connect Moderators →Contribution
Something you add to a POI.
Googler
Google employee, but not a Google Moderator (e.g. from the product or marketing team).
Kudo
In the original version of LGC, Likes were called Kudos.
Layer
The information on Google Maps is organized in layers, e.g. everything related to transportation belongs to the transit layer.
Local Guides Clean The Map
A project focusing on removing inappropriate content from Google Maps.
Read about the project →Local Guides Clean The World
A project by local guide @ermest focusing on cleaning up litter.
Read about the project →Map marker
The red pointer indicating a POI on the map.
Mappable
Fitting to the criteria defined by Google to allow a POI to be added to the map.
Not Applied
The reply you get when one of your contributions is not accepted.
Pending
The reply you get when one of your contributions can’t be approved or rejected by the automatic process and needs to be checked by a Googler.
Perk
Small reward given to all or selected local guides.
Point of interest
A place on Google Maps.
Rating
Your opinion about a POI, expressed in 1 to 5 stars.
Review
Your opinion about a POI written down in a text.
StreetView Trusted Photographer
Contributor who has uploaded 50 approved 360 photos to StreetView.
Trust score
A score that Google keeps on every local guide to help decide whether or not an edit suggested can be accepted automatically.
Uncover missing info
Used to be the part of the LG program where GM suggests POIs where info is still missing; it was only available in the mobile app, but has been removed in the spring of 2021.