Google’s Maps Guide Tom, who first announced the problem (late Feb) with missing records in Maps and the subsequent fix (late April) has noted a work around for any records still not showing up in Map’s as a result of the problem:
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TOPIC: Active listing not appearing? Try this!
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Mon, May 5 2008 3:52 pm
From: Maps Guide Tom
Hi All,
I know that there are reports that some listings aren’t appearing on
Google Maps, even though they have an “active” status and have been
verified with a PIN.
If you’re still experiencing this problem, I have a workaround that
may help get your listing to appear!
First, search for your listing to ensure it’s really not appearing:
1. Go to maps.google.com and click “Find businesses” under the search box.
2. Enter the name of your business as it appears in your Local Business Center Account in the “What” field, and then the city/state combination or zip/postal code in the “Where” field.
3. Hit “Search Businesses”.
If your listing appears, rejoice! Your listing is showing on Google
Maps. If your listing doesn’t appear in the search results, please try
the following:
1. Log in to your Local Business Center account at www.google.com/local/add
2. Click “Edit” next to the listing that isn’t appearing.
3. Without changing any business information, click “Finish”. You
won’t need to re-verify your listing.
4. Wait 24 hours, and then check to see if your business listing is
appearing using the steps above.
This should cause some business listings that aren’t showing to finally appear.
For the successful creation of business listings, please, please remember these two points:
1. This workaround should only be for listings that aren’t appearing but HAVE ALREADY BEEN VERIFIED and whose status is “Active” in the Local Business Center. Please don’t try this if you haven’t yet verified your listing.
2. Don’t include non-address information in either the “Address Line 1″ or “Address Line 2″ of your listing. Including such information will create a problem with the listing and Google Maps’ algorithm won’t be able to place it, even if it appears as a correct location
within your account.
Hopefully, this should clear up most issues about business listings disappearing. If you’ve performed the workaround and your listing still isn’t appearing, please let us know.
Best,
Maps Guide Tom
Maps Guide Tom’s advice to first find your record seems self evident but it is not uncommon for posters in the Maps For Business Groups to not really be sure if their record is in the Map’s index or not. This reflects both a user education issue AND an interface problem on Google’s part. A simple solution in the LBC would be to instead of noting that the record is “Active” offer a choice to actually “View” the record in the index so users of the LBC would be confident that it is actually there. It would obviate the need for the record holders to know how to query maps and it would reduce the frequency of one of the most common questions in the support Group.
It is intriguing to me that it is still necessary for a user to need to individually enter their LBC record and flag it so that Google knows to reindex it. Reminds me of the days of dBase/Foxbase and having to spend the better part of a day reindexing when a computer crashed before you could get back to business. Hmmm, the more things change…
Google has in the past conflated two records but this is the first I have seen a record being confused with its own older version. I sympathized with Nivek’s lament in the Google Maps for Business Group:
TOPIC: Hours duplicated, can’t remove the incorrect set
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= 1 of 1 =
Date: Sat, May 3 2008 12:13 pm
From: nivek
The hours for my business are listed twice and I can’t remove the incorrect set or hours. The set of hours at the top are incorrect:
Google Maps: Dog Daze Puyallup Wa
When I update our hours, it only updates the bottom set, which is the correct set of hours.
I don’t know how to fix this.
Any assistance is appreciated.
Thank you.
Nivek, Dog Daze Natural Pet Market – Puyallup, Wa.
I would respond:
Dear Dazed in Puyallup:
Do not let this set back affect your self image. You have done nothing wrong here. You will not be able to fix this yourself, you will need the help of the others involved in this unfortunate situation. Things happen to data, what it is though just isn’t clear.
I would go back to Google and explain your plight but remember you are not to blame in this situation. If after 7 or 8 pleas they have not yet responded be assured that sooner or later the record will probably straighten itself out. Remember you are but one record among 13 million or so and keeping all of that data straight is a difficult job.
Mike
Jen Chin, aka Maps Guide Jen, in a recent comment to my article Google Maps Fixes missing record bug, has noted:
You’ve seen me posting as “Maps Guide Jen†on our Maps Help Group, but
I’m hoping to get out in the blogosphere and comment on blogs more
often.Â
…. We’re currently talking about a better system for posting when issues
are resolved, but in the meantime, we’ll appreciate your patience as we
work to make our Maps product better. Thanks for the feedback–even
when it may not be apparent that Google is paying attention, we are
working to do better.
Dealing with the vagaries of Maps has been, at best, a frustrating experience. Between the bugs, the unknowns and the lack of communication from Google, solutions have been hard to come by. I certainly welcome a more open Google. I can only hope that they perceive the need to respond in internet time, not Google time and that they respond in a forthright fashion.
To our Maps Guide Jen, I say: Welcome to the party!
Today in the Google Maps for Business Group, Maps Guide Tom reconfirmed that Google had in fact fixed the missing record bug. He was writing in response to the numerous posts that records seemed to be still missing. Most records aren’t in fact missing rather they just don’t show in the Local 10-Pack, the users don’t know how to find them or they are in new record delay hell.
But it appears that some have been delisted by Google for using one of the address lines in the record for descriptive info instead of real address information:
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TOPIC: Business Listing Disappearances
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Fri, May 2 2008 9:56 am
From: Maps Guide Tom
Hi all,
I’ve noticed many of you are reporting that your active business
listings are disappearing from display on Google Maps. In regards to
the post I wrote back in February, that issue has been resolved, and
listings are no longer disappearing from Maps!
……Also, I’ve noticed that many of the issues you guys are reporting have
a common theme.
Please remember to include ONLY address information in
“Address Line 1″ and “Address Line 2″ when you’re creating or editing
your listing from within the Local Business Center. If you put a
business description, or name, or anything that’s not an address in
either of the address fields, your listing may not display on Google
Maps. (my bold)
Best,
Tom
Update: Sometime around 8:00 EDT Saturday evening it appears that Google has removed these listings. It was reported below by Cavan Moon of eClickPerformance.
Stephen Peron of ImNotaDoctor.com reports a case of Mapspam that he discovered while researching the phrase “San Diego internet consulting” (graphic courtesy of Imnotadoctor.com):
He noted that the listing shows up for every major city as well. The spammer appears to have posted his listing 4,176 times:
It is of interest that the spammer does so well on such a broad range of terms over so many cities. For example on the search: “Local Internet Marketing NY NY” :
And on the phrase: “local internet consulting Chicago il“:
This spam raises several interesting questions for me.
1)This was clearly a bulk upload that I was under the impression were now reviewed by Google. Big Local even notes in their listing: “Not a Physical Location.”
2)It ranks well for terms that there are few if any indicators it should rank well for. Their site has a low page rank and not much optimized content. Their local listings are sparse and have no reviews, few if any web page references and few keywords in their listings.
Fortune (via LocalMobileSearch) reports that Apple will be reducing the price of the iPhone by $200. As Greg points out at Local Mobile: Price Matters!
The new price will drive adoption of this fully functional mobile computing device masquerading as a smart phone at a faster rate. Apple’s mobile computing strategy became very clear this past month while visiting a childhood friend who had up to the moment of our visit had steadfastly maintained his Luddite approach to computing.
His wife had purchased him an iPod Touch for an upcoming 20 hour vacation flight to Bali. Upon our arrival he proudly showed me his new toy (remember this is a guy that like me, buys a new car every 15 years whether he needs to or not) and told me how he was going to listen to Dylan and the E Street Band on his long trip.
I started tapping away and noted that it would be a simple thing to hook it the internet via his wife’s laptop which he agreed to. From that point on, each morning and evening he had me implement and train on an ever increasing number of internet capabilities….he started downloading podcasts by Amy Goodman, buying a few videos for the trip on iTunes, discovering the joys of Google Maps (you mean I can look up restaurants? show me!) and incredulous that he could now read his email anywhere.
Last I heard from him was an email from the Tokyo airport about a sock that my son had left buried in the den couch.
Apple, in focusing on the killer app (either music or phone calling + music) has developed a very seductive and appealing way to bring not just the technorati but the ludderati as well into the age of mobile computing. These new users may just leapfrog the desktop that they were so resistant to and in doing so make computing (and local search) a much more integrated part of our every day life.
