Google Maps has rolled out a revised interface (thanks to Jim Giangolio of Lunametics, a Pittsburgh SEO, for the heads up) to the multiple business view of the Google places management area.
The changes are both aesthetic and practical. New are the ability to organize the list by business name or status, an active alert of issues, and miniature displays of the listing stats:
The welcome upgrade to the interface which solves some long standing problems with managing multiple listings still has a few quirks. For example regardless of the view (business or status) chosen, it always reverts to the status view after a record change. We can also hope with this initial upgrade that Google will start including more meaningful error and penalty state messages within the new interface. Regardless, it is a welcome upgrade to anyone with more than 2 or 3 listings in an account.
So far, I’ve seen the following error messages:
1) In a red bar at the top – “The listings that were bulk uploaded are not verified and may not appear in Google search results. If you are the owner, request bulk verification.”
http://twitpic.com/1tuket
2) Needs Action, not yet published (as seen in your picture above)
3) Pending. Being reviewed [This listing needs to be reviewed further before appearing on Google. Please allow several weeks.]
http://twitpic.com/1tumrc
Comment by Jim Gianoglio (43 comments) — June 4, 2010 @ 11:37 am
bumped into same yesterday, Mike….and I love it!
THANKS google lads! gee….they got at least one Usability guy there!!!
Jim
Comment by Jim Rudnick (153 comments) — June 4, 2010 @ 11:46 am
Google did upgrade the help center with those codes yesterday. See: Account Dashboard Status. I am hoping for more than just that (ever the optimist).
Comment by Mike (2424 comments) — June 4, 2010 @ 11:47 am
Love this new upgrade but will probably encounter flaws in near future
Comment by Martijn Beijk (59 comments) — June 7, 2010 @ 8:15 am
Like the one where it says: ‘Needs action’ …but it doesn’t tell me anymore what broke it ? this used to be this way in the old version (although the message provided was far from clear..)
Any tips on this one?
Comment by Martijn Beijk (59 comments) — June 7, 2010 @ 8:17 am
The one complaint I have about the new interface is that they no longer show the date when a postcard was sent. The old interface would tell you, but the new one has dropped that feature. It’s not a huge deal, but it was nice to know.
Comment by Shawn Hart (14 comments) — June 7, 2010 @ 10:43 am
[...] Google Maps: Updated Google places Management UI (LBC), Mike Blumenthal [...]
Pingback by SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 7, 2010 — June 7, 2010 @ 5:02 pm
This upgrade looks nice but I’ve seen several accounts with multiple listings that now have flaws which “needs action”. For instance claiming listings will render duplicates in the account when you claim a listing via “claim this listing” or “Edit this listing”. I’m not quite sure what to do with the duplicate listings. There are some bugs for sure. I’m crossing my fingers that it all sorts itself out.
Comment by Jeffrey Magner (73 comments) — June 8, 2010 @ 9:23 pm
@Jeffrey
This is an old bug that seemed to have died down…they usually result because you made significant changes to the record and it could be easily reconciled.
Comment by Mike (2424 comments) — June 9, 2010 @ 7:37 am