Update: At roughly 10:00 am EST it appears to have been fixed.
Last night I went to bed with my blog post about the new Places hotel booking feature in the bag thinking life was under control and all was good in Google Places land. Hah!
I awake to an email from Matt Tengler of allLocal alerting me to a bug the size of the cockroach that ate Tokyo.
Every Places Page business name has been replaced with their address. The bug is not showing on the main serps or in Places search, only on the Places page:
Not in the UK it hasn’t…but might well come in at a later date as US usually leads.
Comment by Boyd Butler (7 comments) — February 17, 2011 @ 10:00 am
Ouch! That stings a bit, but like you pointed out it’s not showing in the SERPS or Places results, so it should cause only moderate havoc, since in theory one has already arrived at a Place page of their choosing.
My concern is how does this affect Places Mobile app on iPhone?
Comment by Tyler Robertson (13 comments) — February 17, 2011 @ 10:15 am
@Boyd
Thanks for the international perspective.
@Tyler
Yes the visual damage is not widespread although it will create a fair bit of what I call the “it must be my fault” syndrome.
A correspondant noted this in an email to me: [I first noticed it] Around 7:45AM EST this morning — then spent 15 minutes freaking out thinking we had screwed up our client’s listings
Comment by Mike (2500 comments) — February 17, 2011 @ 10:19 am
It will be interesting to see how long it takes Google to fix this one. Hopefully it is a simple fix.
Comment by Matt Grant (3 comments) — February 17, 2011 @ 10:28 am
Got the same issue here in the Netherlands.
I manage two businesses with one google account (all Dutch, sorry) I own both businesses, both are at the same physical address.
Jelle Beijer (http://goo.gl/maps/TmZ4) is active and working
Get-Located is suspended for review (thus no url available)
Get-located data is shown on the Jelle Beijer places entry; the adress is shown as the location title.
Comment by Jelle Beijer (1 comments) — February 17, 2011 @ 10:29 am
I am actually encouraged by this bug. It means Google is changing something do with the business names, and obviously whatever changed went awry. Could it be about merged listings of similar business names?
please, pretty please…
Comment by Lauren R (21 comments) — February 17, 2011 @ 10:31 am
@Jelle
Thanks for the Dutch POV
@Lauren
Wow, you are a true optimist. Your cup is not just half full, its over flowing. Here’s hoping!
Comment by Mike (2500 comments) — February 17, 2011 @ 10:44 am
Apparently Google is doing some testing, just checked “blumenthals olean ny” and in Maps it’s showing your domain name.
Comment by John Heard (1 comments) — February 17, 2011 @ 10:49 am
for me, your listing is showing in Chrome with Blumenthals.com as the business name.
Comment by Adam Marsh (9 comments) — February 17, 2011 @ 10:50 am
Yeah, back to normal for me now too.
Comment by Matt (43 comments) — February 17, 2011 @ 10:56 am
Yup the names are back (party).
Hope that Lauren is right, though
Comment by Plamen (68 comments) — February 17, 2011 @ 10:59 am
@Mike…thanks…not up here in g.ca yet…but I’d guess it’s a coming too….tho hopefully, it’s just an ‘itch’ that G will ‘scratch’ and company names will reappear….
Jim
Comment by Jim Rudnick (164 comments) — February 17, 2011 @ 11:00 am
@All
Thanks for the many reports. It does appear that Google quickly quashed this one.
Comment by Mike (2500 comments) — February 17, 2011 @ 11:04 am
Mike: It appears to me that problem was fixed.
Now I’d like to speak on semantics and reference what Tyler referenced and your response. Essentially:
A) the problem was only showing in Places
B) that does mitigate the issue. It wouldn’t be the size of the cockroach that ate Tokyo
C) It does cause deep consternation and issues for those that manage websites–ie “What did I do wrong” How do I fix that!!! etc.
Of note: The other day you referenced this post about “potential Google Customer Service” http://blumenthals.com/blog/2011/02/16/google-placetags-support-calls-me-back/#comments
Two of the comments, including Ryan and I referenced that we did get calls (albeit totally surprising calls) from Google with regard to Duplicate listing records.
In my case the duplicate disappeared from the main listings, the merged organic/Local listings…and most places. Moreover in my case, it appears the potential and actual scraping of “signals” citations, reviews, etc. that were jumping from record to record….has stopped. At least its stopped for the time being.
Having referenced all that…..the Duplicate Record still exists in the Google Places Index. Why they can’t get rid of it once and for all….I don’t understand. To the extent its there (even though there is no business there) is a potential problem…but not a big problem.
Lets face it. Direct traffic to the Places Page is probably minuscule…Possibly below minuscule.
Certainly as shown by the email you received–it creates problems for the webmaster….but if the accurate record is showing in the main Google Serps….life is pretty good….especially if you are #1.
Cockroach that ate Tokyo??? maybe not. but a cockroach nonetheless
Comment by earlpearl (784 comments) — February 17, 2011 @ 12:19 pm
We noticed that our business listing was missing but the reviews were showing up in the SERPS.. strange, finally concluded our business listing has been merged with another agency. This has created somewhat of a mess where overlapping details on two organizations now reside under one business profile.
What was surprising and got me thinking of Mikes earlier post on “potential Google Customer Service” is we actually had a call answered in two rings and it was answered by a live Google agent!
BTW, has anyone else noticed something going on with the Bing Local Business center? I first noticed this when I went to getlisted.org to double check that I did not screw something up and noticed we were not only “not found” in Google but also now Bing. So I logged into my account and confirmed the listing was still intact and stamped with a date it was verified. Decided to goto mapquest and check out the results just to find we are indeed not showing up.
Comment by Brent (10 comments) — February 17, 2011 @ 12:57 pm
@earl
You are slipping in your role as defender of cultural values. You note my hyperbole about the cockroach but not even a squeak about the great road sign!
Comment by Mike (2500 comments) — February 17, 2011 @ 3:43 pm
Loved the sign, Mike!!!
Comment by earlpearl (784 comments) — February 17, 2011 @ 5:06 pm
I’m with lauren on this +++
could it mean something is in the works to deal with spammy names?
Andy
Comment by Andy Kuiper (232 comments) — February 19, 2011 @ 6:28 pm