I just checked Google again. The missing info does show up now using Firefox. IE still showing the page I mentioned with hardly any details. (Andy, see if you get your details when you try Firefox. When I checked the link I gave in my prior post above for Tekoe Tee, their page comes up fully in Firefox also.)

Here’s the kicker. My data has now been merged with another mortgage lender in my building. All the primary info and details (coupons, phone number, reviews) remain associated with me. But all the affiliated web pages mentioned are for the other office – with the exception of my site name shown in the Local Results Top 7 page.

What a mess I have now. Can’t imagine how this will be fixed w/o starting over and losing my reviews.

On a positive note, I suppose I should be grateful that “my” data is what’s showing up in the actual search results. The other office is not in the listings at all.

I did everything I knew I was supposed to do to get my mortgage listing at the top. And it’s still there. But why is the data gone? I did far more than any other business in my category in terms of reviews, videos, citations, pics, other links, coupons, etc. All this info has been there for months with more added all the time. Yet it can’t be seen. The details still show in my LBC panel, but for some reason don’t flow through to the listing search results.

I still have to wonder if it is a Google slap.

By the way, I did further research and other people are complaining about the same thing on a Google Local forum.

For the record, this is what I mean by the details disappearing. See this site. It’s not my site – as is probably obvious. The person who owns the listing was complaining on the forum.

Interesting too is that the “more” link on that page is not clickable, but we see it should be. On other “working” pages, that link directs visitor to send email.

Is this what you are referring to Andy?

What a pain in the gazoo.

Definitely sorry to hear your story. Truly abominable.

The Internet is great. Helps us in so many ways. But when it goes wrong, we are at its mercy.

As you mentioned, it is more sad that so many businesses don’t want or even refuse human contact and make no bones about it. I suppose businesses and employees are busy sitting back thinking of products to market to us and have no time for “live” customer service.

Google seems to do a pretty good job of screwing up.

Not only does the Bishop at my church advise we must have 6 streams of income, I also know I cannot put all my eggs in one basket for anything involving the Internet. I must have several products, several sites, several promotions, blah, blah, blah AND have something going on offline.

Amazing how the TOS absolves the provider of any responsibility. TOS gives companies/people carte blanche to screw up and say “oh well.” Google Maps does that a lot. Back when we lived and breathed a mostly offline world, things like this just didn’t happen.

All the best to you.

There are never many times that acting rashly helps but remember in local that slow and steady is the best bet.

Lets assume that Google has refined their rankings and as a result you are now lower in standing or lets assume the opposite it doesn’t matter…regardless doing those thing things that are going to help long term are always good things: reviews, citations, local links…those are things that will help long haul no matter what….

Those are also things that you can be doing now and they can only help.

Mike

I went into my account and just updated several things, hopefully that’ll do something. I’m going to wait a few days as Mike suggested; and I haven’t found anything regarding a “fix” to this issue anywhere.

Finlly, people that were searching for my services were finding me- and rightfully so! After all, I’m not only the best on my location, but one of the best in my industry, credited with multiple awards and years of expertise. At the time, I was so happy with Google that I would have kissed their shoes. They gave me the means to connect with clients where my limited resources could not.

My home business grew to more than I could handle by myself. I needed to hire help, but to do so, I needed to get an office. I hired an attorney to draft up a business plan and we shopped it to the banks. Our pitch was simple “We need this much to expand- we’re making twice as much so it won’t be hard to pay back.” The loan was approved.

I paid thousands for all the right licensing, hired 2 employees and moved into a warehouse. As sales increased and I expanded my inventory. Here’s where it turns bad:

We moved into a warehouse lot with similar businesses. We all shared the same street address but different suites. One day, callers started complaining about products that we didn’t even carry and services that we didn’t perform. Turns out, one of our competitors had managed to rack up multiple negative reviews on his Google local listing and it had somehow MERGED with our listing.

Now, dealing with damage control isn’t so tough. We explained to callers that they had the wrong number and gave them the correct one. The icing on the cake- when our business came to a screeching halt- was when we found that our phone number was nowhere to be seen. No one called for our business. To put it lightly, our phone lines had become the enemy.

For nearly 2 months, we struggled with finding new customers. We passed out flyers but that proved to be ineffective. We heavily relied on Craigslist advertising. In fact, that was our ONLY source of revenue.

Google was no help. They would not even entertain the idea of listening to us. What baffled me the most was how a company that employs 20,000 people (that’s right, twenty-thousand) didn’t have a single person to answer the phone. Here’s Google’s phone number, call them and ask them about anything and see what happens: (650) 253-0000. They will shut you down like a light.

Like a broken record, Google’s android receptionists repeatedly chanted the anthem of: “We do not offer tech support for ‘free services’. We do not offer tech support for ‘free services’. We do…” Ok, as a professional I can understand that a business would not give free support for a free service, but I was willing to PAY. Alas, there was no one at Google that would take my money. Then I remembered that I had paid Google thousands of dollars in Adwords, a $21 Billion dollar company and they couldn’t help me.

Finally, I ended up deleting my Google Local listing. I created a new one and waited a week for my conformation code. After verifying the code I searched daily for my listing to appear. About a week later I found it… It was on page 4. I’m sure you can figure out what happened in the proceeding weeks. We liquidated.

There’s an old proverb: “Don’t put your eggs into one basket”… Whether that’s true or not, I know that basket is not Google.

Thanks for debt,
Out Of Business

Still listed, but not showing the info.

Will hope for the best.