Recently there have been a growing number of problems that our business websites face as it relates to Google Maps. We aren’t asking Google to rank our sites first. We are simply attempting to get seen within Maps and get correct information out to the public.

The problems range from dashboards that don’t work, to inability to upload pictures into the various LBC’s on behalf of these businesses, to being strangely miscategorized, without explanation, to wrong data being presented. It varies from business to business.

I appreciate this forum for the feedback and suggestions it offers. Strangely Google doesn’t do the same. The sad fact is that the mistakes are occurring in Google Maps, not in this forum.

How strange that I have to express these frustrations here rather than in Google Maps, who, were they to react professionally, would address my concerns.

Instead, they either ignore my concerns, along those of other business operators, allow other people to comment on the issues, and/or create some crazy button indicating as to whether or not another reader feels “an answer has been given”.

As someone who has requested assistance within Google Maps in the past on behalf of a variety of businesses I can state I’ve never received an answer from Google.

Up to this point, Google’s way (high tech power, low people power) has dominated. Whether that will continue to be the case in local remains to be seen.

If Local is different than Google will fail. If Local is basically the same as organic they will succeed.

Obviously bringing near monopoly position to the battle gives them a huge advantage at the game start but if their actions are ultimately counter to the market’s real needs and interests, there will be either public or governmental push back

PureSheer…many of us have felt the shock of having Yahoo pick up the phone or send us a personal email after the mind-numbing experience of dealing with Google’s opacity. Yahoo is coming off as far more people-centric than Google because of this.

The only problem is…they don’t get Google’s traffic, so we keep having to play in Google’s ballpark. Still, it’s nice to know Yahoo cares!

Robert…your remarks regarding Google’s possible unpreparedness for the avalanche that is Local are very illuminating. I hadn’t thought of this before. It’s true, definitely, that Google has launched applications that failed to become big. Could they have thought this might be the case with Local? Interesting thoughts.

I’ll be happy to give some tips & basic instructions for you on your Yahoo Local journey.
Not that I’m such an expert, but i know one or two things that can help.

(In the meantime, I’d better sign up for an account here — I’m being conflated with some other Robert who has also posted comments.)

I’ll be happy to share some amazing experience that I had with Yahoo Local’s Customers Care-

Not only that they replied my inquiries by email, they even called back to ask a few questions! But it didn’t stopped here! They refund my account with $140 that they accidently charged me for a duplicated Enhanced listing that was active many months without us noticing that!

Oh, Yahoo! I think I’m falling in love!

THE BEST PART from this issue- They even managed to delete many bad reviews that the spammers planted in our listings & they even deleted all the good reviews that those spammers stuffed to their own listings (BTW- those are the same Mega Spammers Locksmiths from Google Maps).

Isn’t that lovely?!!!

When Maps really gets out there and we see an exponential rise in users (i mean customers) in the forums seeking help, then Google may be forced to do something better.

I think you are right that Google does think of us all as “users” (and probably as “users” who would like to manipulate their system) rather than customers. They sure appear tone deaf though don’t they.

Mike

I’ve been having my own adventure with the Local Business Center, and I think the problem there is that Google seriously mis-estimated the amount and type of interest they got in their product. They got a lot more than mom-and-pop shops, and I think they got a lot more response than they were ready for. The lack of any verification method for bulk-uploaded listings is a clear sign that Google didn’t expect a lot of bulk uploads.

(At my company, we bulk-uploaded the data for our 100+ locations, and then discovered we couldn’t verify them or assign coupons to them. We recently deleted all the bulk-uploaded data and keyed it one at a time. We had to spread it across a couple of accounts because you can’t have more than 100 locations in an LBC account — another serious design-stage mistake.)

As you say, Google is a company of engineers. I think they’re busy trying to fix the underlying problems, but they’re doing in in the classic engineering/computer science way: buckling down, shutting up, and getting to work. The “shutting up” part leaves us customers clueless about what’s going on, and clueless about whether we’ve even been heard.

Deep down, I think Google thinks of us all as “users” rather than “customers,” and changing that view will be to Google’s benefit at least as much as ours.

Maybe Google will hire Mike and/or some other like-minded souls to help out — maybe the problem is rising to high enough prominence thanks to blog posts like this one.