From the rollout of the G+ Local Social merge and bugs showing up when service area businesses attempted to hide their address, Google has said that service area businesses (SABs) should NOT merge their Places listing with their G+ social page. Well, some SABs did not get the message (big surprise eh?) and the question is what should they do now. The answer: Delete the Merged page and rely solely on the dashboard to manage the listing.
Google posted this sticky in the forums:
Are you a Service Area Business (SAB) that has created and verified/merged a social local Google+ page for your business? Read on!
If you do not accept customers at your location, then your address should be hidden. At this time, Google+ currently does not support hidden addresses. You should delete your social local Google+ page from within Google+ (Click on Pages on the ribbon on the left, go to the Settings of your page, and scroll to the bottom and click Delete page).
Don’t worry! You can still manage your business’ presence on Google. Here’s how:
- If you’re a verified business owner in Google Places for Business…
- Manage the listing via the Google Places for Business dashboard. Be sure to hide your address.
- If not, but a listing for your business exists…
- Find the listing for your business and become a verified business owner by clicking on Manage this page on the right-hand side.
- Then, manage the page via the Google Places for Business dashboard
- If no listing for your business exists…
- Add it on Google Places for Business: places.google.com/local/add
We’ll share updates with you on this thread when we have them.
I agree 100%
If you merge this type of business it will be “suspended” by Google. I know because I experimented just with it.
Delete the Google+ page and everything goes back to normal.
However, the downside is having a legitimate brick and mortar business in which Google thinks is a service business. I have a locksmith customer who has an actual 9-5 store and each time I try to make his listing “All customers come to the location” his account gets suspended.
Locksmiths are a tough one in Google’s eyes and always have been.
Comment by Trina (8 comments) — December 20, 2012 @ 7:02 am
Learned this the hard way too. I was a little too excited about the new product and jumped right in, to the detriment of the listing. I wonder how long it is going to take for Google to get this right. I am frankly astonished by their incompetence when it comes to local.
I recently deleted the page an I am waiting for it to get out of purgatory. I really thought they were going to have a faster response to these issues.
Comment by Steve (34 comments) — December 20, 2012 @ 9:02 am
I always wait a month or two after Google rolls out some major change (like Google+ Local) before making changes or recommending any changes to my customers. The relationship between Places and Google+ Local is taking a lot longer for Google to sort out. I don’t recommend merging listings even if you’re a brick & mortar business.
Comment by Chad Kimball (26 comments) — December 20, 2012 @ 9:51 am
The big question is to me….. why doesn’t Google+ Local pages support SABs – it should. Google is so silly.
Comment by Matthew Hunt (77 comments) — December 20, 2012 @ 10:14 am
@All
The messaging has been terrible, the ability to build out a functional product has been terrible. It has not been pretty.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — December 20, 2012 @ 10:59 am
Mike–I’m trying to understand the potential harm here. Assuming that a service business isn’t afraid of listing their physical office address, even if not serving customers there, where is the downside? At the moment, we’re not seeing that anything sticks on G+ Local pages–no photos, no videos, no reviews, no updates, no verification calls or postcards. But on merged pages, we’re at least able to get photos and videos to take. Posts at least allow for some content and engagement. And I’ve been unable to detect any harm to local rankings. (Although in checking just now for “energy audit los angeles” I notice that Building Doctors now displays two separate Google+ page links, one to Posts and one to About.)
Here’s Building Docs merged page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/101441141718220114156/posts
Comment by Peter Troast (11 comments) — December 20, 2012 @ 11:27 am
Assuming that a service business isn’t afraid of listing their physical office address, even if not serving customers there, where is the downside?
Google REQUIRES that a business that does not serve customers at their location to HIDE their address. Failure to do so will result in a take down and the dreaded purge to the freezing cold “we currently do not support” siberia.
Photos will take from the dashboard but they take 4-5 weeks. Videos will not. But so few people actually make it to the Local+ page it is not that important if a photo is missing.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — December 20, 2012 @ 11:34 am
Peter THOUSANDS (I believe hundreds of thousands) were delete due to not hiding address. Many were down for months, so it’s nothing to mess around with.
The double G+ links you are seeing in the SERPs is a new display issue that just started being reported. I did some investigating and think I figured out what’s up. I attempt to explain it here and show screen shots, so look and see if this is the same issue. Seeing Double? 2 G+ Local Links in SERPs? Here’s Why?
Comment by Linda Buquet (293 comments) — December 20, 2012 @ 12:05 pm
When does Google create a new index to do “Psychic Search” so people don’t have to guess what they’re thinking?
Comment by Dave Squires (7 comments) — December 20, 2012 @ 4:05 pm
Mike,
What happens to any reviews the company has when you delete the merged plus account page? Do they stay with the old places account or do they go away?
Comment by Dave Squires (7 comments) — December 20, 2012 @ 4:13 pm
It so often feels like I’m invited by Google into a room with a nice rug. Then they pull it out from under me. It’s not the fall I mind so much as the sudden stop at the end.
For all the nit-picky exactness that Google requires of its users it seems like they take an increasingly haphazard approach to their “Local” product. If we acted like Google, we would ALL be suspended.
Comment by Jim Froling (15 comments) — December 20, 2012 @ 10:13 pm
I manage several service area businesses with a merged G+Local/business page and have had no problem at all. I imagine the problems come when a business listing already exists prior to merge as all of the ones I work on are brand new businesses.
Comment by marco.patricio (1 comments) — December 21, 2012 @ 12:22 pm
@Mike and @Linda: thanks very much for responding. As you could probably surmise, I didn’t really want to face this reality, but we’ve taken your advice to heart and put out this post to the energy efficiency community, citing both of you.
http://www.energycircle.com/blog/2012/12/20/important-update-google-local-home-performance-businesses
Comment by Peter Troast (11 comments) — December 21, 2012 @ 6:25 pm
Dave, the way I believe it works and the way its designed to work…
You have a Place page, with reviews. Then you have a G+ social page with follow button and circles. You merge them – all those features are combined. Then if you delete the G+ page, you SHOULD just lose the G+ features including social. But I think the reviews should stay, because they are attached to the Places side of the house. HOWEVER we all know reviews are fragile and any change can upset the delicate balance.
Peter you are welcome and thanks in return for mentioning my comments in your article.
Comment by Linda Buquet (293 comments) — December 22, 2012 @ 3:53 pm
@marco
If the businesses are service area businesses and do not have their addresses hidden then you will have problems. For G+ you need to show your address but if you do, and you don’t accept clients at your location, then you run the risk of being taken down.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — December 22, 2012 @ 10:59 pm
@Dave
It is possible, in fact likely, that you will lose the reviews for a short period of time (1-7 days) but they will likely return.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — December 22, 2012 @ 11:00 pm
I am in the same boat as marco. My business is new and has only ever had a google+ page (the google places page was a phone verification after the + page was up) I am afraid to delete the + page because if I do I am sure the quasi places page will go away (doesn’t look like a traditional places page, looks like a + page that opens to the “about” section)
About a month ago I noticed that google was hiding my address for this places page (good by me as that seems to be the issue people are having with the SAB + page)
Hopefully it works out as this has all been a bit of headache honestly. G local is a mess lately
Comment by Alex (16 comments) — December 25, 2012 @ 4:36 am
I’ve been experiencing tons of problems with local listings lately, and I think it has something to do with this. Google, get it together already.
Comment by Edward R. (7 comments) — December 25, 2012 @ 6:16 pm
Google is making it tougher as earleir said by Edward R. Same is the case with me.
Comment by Nick Simard (1 comments) — December 27, 2012 @ 10:57 am
the link they show at the end of this post is no good. Damn Google you are so freakin inefficient.
Comment by Kreg Atterberry (1 comments) — December 28, 2012 @ 12:50 pm
This is the the first time I wasn’t an early adopter , and thank goodness, as I waited before trying to merge a SAB with a G+ Page… now it’s officially on hold.
Thanks for this important heads up Mike
Comment by Andy Kuiper (232 comments) — December 29, 2012 @ 7:01 pm
We have a plumber as a client – it has taken over 2 months to get their Google+ Local page correct. Everything on the backend (dashboard) is right.
We Hid his address (per Google’s guidelines) but Google kept adding a Street address to their listing. It was a street about 1/2 mile from where the plumber is located. It has happened 3 times – I found a Google+ help friend in the process – but even he wasn’t sure why the street kept appearing.
Not only that, from the very beginning, we got the “we do not support this location” error, which I knew would take up to a week to go away. Photos took forever to post and the main one, even though I have it posted as the first photo, doesn’t (it’s second), I’ve tried changing. I’ve also had to report duplicates twice.
The point I’m getting to is that (SEB) Service Area Businesses are not worth us as a business to provide Google+ Local page optimization as one of our services. We won’t take on SEB as a client anymore – too many issues. We design and develop WP Websites. If a client is a SEB and wants s Google+ Local page, we train them how to claim and optimize the page themselves. In the training we provide the Local Forum, Google and Your Business Forum and the Troubleshooter (thank you Linda) as places to go to get help.
In the future, when Google finally treats SEB’s like they do store front businesses, then we will start taking them on as clients again. We just can’t afford the time it takes for the listing be correct, and believe me, plumbers, electricians, etc. don’t have the time to listen to us as to why their Google+ Local page is not correct.
The last thing we would do now is to merge that Plumbers page with a Google+ business page. Yikes! More trouble.
Comment by Susan Walsh (33 comments) — December 30, 2012 @ 10:25 am
Hi Mike,
Your advise is spot on as far as deleting the plus page. I think there was a change to their system about 2-3 weeks ago that made the issue worse. We work with over 150 service contractors on local SEO and only saw all the places listings start to disappear the second week of December–even though there was no effect on the verified merges over the last 2-3 months before then.
When you delete the PLUS page you get a 404 error when you view the listing for an hour or so, then all the places listings that had gone away reappear. You were also right about the reviews. The reviews are not lost by doing this.
Comment by Dave Squires (7 comments) — December 31, 2012 @ 3:39 pm
@Dave
Thanks for the update.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — December 31, 2012 @ 3:44 pm
I did everything as described in this blog. I’ve removed the Google+ page, i’m clicked on “do not show address”. Yet, it’s still in “Pending” status. How long will it take for the pending to be gone?
Comment by TeknoTom (1 comments) — January 4, 2013 @ 2:59 pm
I ran into this issue–I did not hide my address and well thinking hey I need a google+ page–I created it.
Lo and behold–I lost my map listing.
After educating myself–I went ahead and hit the delete key on my google+ business and hid the address and entered my service area–within a few days my listings were back “on the map”
I think what bothers me the most from this whole learning experience:
If you google my trade, city state–google has decided that other service industries deserve to have map placement–no website, no verified listing, NOTHING like that and they get listed I guess because well who the heck knows why.
The ones trying to please the google gods have pending listings and the ones who don’t do anything to setup their listings get primary page one real estate.
I’m going to sign off and say a prayer to the “google gods” about this–maybe they will listen.
Comment by Drew Bussell (1 comments) — January 5, 2013 @ 10:54 am
Hi Mike!
We are a new business with no listing. From what I’m understanding, we should go to places.google.com/local/add. My question is – should I use the email that is linked to my Google+ account or should I use a new gmail that I set up for the business?
Thank you!
Comment by Julie Larson (5 comments) — January 11, 2013 @ 11:40 pm
I have a (SAB) and based on the advice on removing my address from my places listing I did so. I never setup/upgraded to a Goggle+ page although Google converted it to a new plus.google URL. I have always placed in the top three spots for all relevant keywords in a very competitive industry. After 2 weeks I can’t see any real change in position or change in the number of impressions or calls etc… I do look out of place without a map maker but i have a circle (thanks Google) two text lines and not three. (maybe that is not such a bad thing because I do stand out a little) My (SAB) competitors still have not made the change. I do feel good about the change because I feel as if my Google master is looking down on me with blessings. One thing that happen today was I started a Google offer and the following message was displayed. ( Google Offers is not available for businesses like yours. Offers aim to bring customers to your door and since you selected to not show your address on your maps listings this product isn’t the right match for you.)
So NO Goggle Offers from a (SAB) Sorry!!
Comment by JR (7 comments) — January 15, 2013 @ 3:01 pm
Hi good people,
I;m doing local SEO SAB (Service Area Business) and I listened to Google and removed Google+ local pages and hide my adddress and the thing that irritates me the most is that my competitors didn’t do almost anything, and some of them still rank WITH their Google+ Local pages WITH ADDRESSES…
Anyone experiencing similar issues?
Comment by Mark (109 comments) — January 15, 2013 @ 3:59 pm
It’s nice to see the update comments that have come through. This is an on-going situation that causes confusion. I have just 1 very simple question: If you are a SAB and the address was ALREADY hidden, do you need to take any action? Should you delete delete the merged place as standard?
Comment by Nick (24 comments) — January 23, 2013 @ 2:03 pm
@nick
SAB listings with address hidden are unsupported by Google. Their recommendation is to pull the plus and separate them.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — January 23, 2013 @ 2:13 pm
Thank you for clarifying that mike.
Comment by Nick (24 comments) — January 24, 2013 @ 9:59 am
We have a google places listing,w hich is a service area business that has all our reviews. and verified
We have another Google+ sitting on a different account and verified.
So if you cannot merge the google+ with places for SAB, Which account should you upload videos, photos to and link back to your business??
Comment by samY (1 comments) — February 22, 2013 @ 7:28 am
@samY
It is not a question of which but of when. Google does not support service area business with hidden address on the social local G+ Page and will remove your G+ Page if they find it.
So for now there is no way to do video on SAB type businesses. Photos can take a month or more to show up from the dashboard. And there is no simple way to do rel=pub.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — February 22, 2013 @ 8:32 am
Okay, so I know this thread is old, but it seems like the appropriate place for my question.
If Google’s guidelines are such that when you choose the “Yes, this business serves customers at their locations” you must ALWAYS choose the “Hide my address” option, why do they even include that as an option? Is there ever a business that serves customers at their locations that doesn’t need to hide their address?
Comment by Lauren (5 comments) — March 18, 2013 @ 5:55 pm
@Lauren
Is there ever a business that serves customers at their locations that doesn’t need to hide their address?< \em>
Yes. A business that has a storefront AND does on site service like a full service appliance dealer.
Comment by Mike Blumenthal (1962 comments) — March 18, 2013 @ 5:58 pm