Comments on: Basic Places Practices Update: How do you claim an owner-verified listing?

By: Lisa Duncan

Lisa Duncan — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 19:06:49 +0000

Thank you for all your suggestions on Claiming an Owner-verified listing. I clicked on the link that you provided in STEP 6 and see that the option to select “Someone else has verified my listing” is no longer a choice on the Google page. I was wondering if you had any other suggestions at this point.

Thanks for all your help!

Suggested Additional Steps:

6) Get in touch with Google Places support using this form:
http://support.google.com/places/bin/static.py?hl=en&ts=1386120&page=ts.cs
Select: Someone else has verified the listing.

By: Mike Blumenthal

Mike Blumenthal — Thu, 24 May 2012 17:16:07 +0000

@Jeffrey

Google started calling businesses about a year ago. They have really ramped up this effort in the past 6 months. If there is anything askance with the listing, you can expect it to disappear very quickly after the call… they are getting serious about listing quality.

By: Jeffrey

Jeffrey — Thu, 24 May 2012 17:13:06 +0000

Last week we made some edits to a previously owner-verified listing. This week the business owner got “a phone call from Google” asking to verify the business categories chosen. That was all they wanted to do – verify the categories specifically. No sales gimmicks. No weirdness.

When I first heard this I surely thought it was not actually Google calling. But the business owner said the caller ID said “Mountain View, CA” and that’s why he answered the call. (650) 253-2000 was the number. I called it. It’s Google.

Mike do you have any thoughts on this?

By: Ned C

Ned C — Wed, 23 May 2012 02:08:47 +0000

I totally agree with Jeffrey, it is nice to know that someone can shed some light on us. Thank you Mike.

By: Mike Blumenthal

Mike Blumenthal — Tue, 22 May 2012 20:38:20 +0000

@Jeffrey

Thanks. It is always nice to know that something I write is helpful. I really appreciate the feedback.

By: Jeffrey

Jeffrey — Tue, 22 May 2012 20:35:01 +0000

@Ned ~ Address Changes are a complete & total nightmare.

@Mike ~ This is an awesome update. Thanks so much for again being the lighthouse in the fog of Google Places.

By: Ned C

Ned C — Mon, 21 May 2012 20:40:15 +0000

This is what I was afraid off. With over 100 business directories with wrong address, this will be quite an undertaking. I was hopping that there was an easier way. Thank you for a quick response.

By: Mike Blumenthal

Mike Blumenthal — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:46:59 +0000

@Ned

At Google you need to use the “Report a Problem” mechanism to indicate that the old location is “closed”.

However, you also need to be sure that you change the address the whole of the internet so that you don’t lose your prominence.

By: Ned C

Ned C — Sun, 20 May 2012 21:09:52 +0000

How do you fix a problem where you have a listing that has been around for years and than you change the address. Old address still shows on the new Google Local listing?

By: Joy Hawkins

Joy Hawkins — Sat, 19 May 2012 01:15:50 +0000

We started doing this a few weeks ago and it definitely solves a ton of issues!