Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Google looses Ohio
Like John Kerry in 2004, Google seems to have lost Ohio. Although this time, rather than being due to political operatives or electronic voting machines, the issues seem to lie with some new bug in the Local Business Center.
A reader, whose daily livelihood depends on the Local Business Center and who was recently spotted with bald spots where her hair had been pulled out, sent in this screen shot:
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Comments
16 Comments
Not only Ohio it seems, but all the provinces in Canada as well. All my bulk uploads from yesterday were rejected due to missing states/provinces . I mean it could be post Canadian Election Blues & Pre America Votes ’08 jitters???
Very bizzarre. Where Google has fixed one problem it seems another one had sprung up. Ever get the feeling they are like the little Dutch boy trying to keep the dijke from leaking?
I think it is really the first salvo in our efforts to make Canada a US protectorate. First deflate them emotionally by deleting their provinces, demoralize their workers and then move in for the “kill”…voila another state 🙂
Mike
I don’t remember who posted this, but didn’t Google switch mapping services, and from that I seem to remember a similar thing happening.
Maybe Google knows something about Ohio that no one else knows…
I remember they did. When that happened I was unable to submit an edit to a lisitng if it had more than 3 “additional details” – and also when we tried to modify the business name we would get an error message, then try again and have to delete the attributes.
This is far more serious than what had taken place about 3 weeks ago. That was annoying yes, however; you were still able to keep your listing present.
Now – no way Jose. The listings are being disapproved willy nilly. With gay abandon they are rifling through my listings casting them asunder.
Hmmm yes… I was wonder if this was an attempt to resurrect Manifest Destiny.
You guys are tricky little tricksters!
@Joan
Ah..Manifest Destiny is old news, we are on to much bigger pastures. The world is now our oyster. The likes of the Carter Doctrine put Manifest Destiny to shame. Canada beware.
Mike
We’re doomed.. doomed I say!!
All annexing aside… Can Google fix this or is it going to be another month before they throw some code at it? ( no disrespect meant.. this is just one bald patched, sleep deprived Almost Annexed yet to be determined American typing)
I wouldn’t hold my breath on the LBC getting fixed any time soon. The wingnuts at GOOG are too busy right now screwing things up over on the iGoogle platform http://stever.ca/internet/new-igoogle-navigation-sucks/
I do kid, of course, not likely the same team working on those separate parts of Google, but seems like its open season on criticizing the GOOG lately.
Hi Mike,
That particular field currently only accepts country/region/province codes, not the full name. We’ll look into a way to make this clearer, but I wanted to swing by and assure you that this is not a bug in the Local Business Center.
I noticed Joan also reported this in the help group. In the future I’d recommend anyone experiencing these types of issues to go through that channel; it makes it a little simpler for us to investigate when we can see the context/thread behind it.
Cheers,
Jen
Hi Jen
Joan noted to me that the full name Ohio was in the drop down and not of her doing.
Mike
Google’s bug fixes and solutions on Local Search seem to be alot slower than they are across their other properties. You’d think Local would be a bigger issue for them.
Okay dokey here folks let me try to dispell some of the confusion here but running ya’ll through it step by step.
*takes a deep breath*
We did a bulk up load for this particular client so there was no other option BUT to use a two “digit” alpha code. Ditto for the Canadian bulk upload we did.
When we went back to check on the American listings they were all disapproved. ALL OF THEM – with an error message that the custom attribute biz discription was too long.
When we fixed the the length of characters ( down from the allowed 200 characters to 170 characters) we got another error message stating there was no such state/province for that country.
I opened a blog message on Google.
*takes another deep breath*
THEN when trying to do an upload for a Canadian client I got the error message right away that there was no such state/province for the country.
This is not my first bulk upload, I’m well aware of the fact that there needs to be a two digit alpha code when doing a bulk upload.
HOWEVER: when you go into Maps LBC and try to do an edit manuall or do a listing manually there is in fact a drop down list of the states/provinces in FULL alpha spelling. So to say that I’m doing it wrong by NOT choosing a two digit alpha code is a bit misleading at best. I have no option but to choose a full character spelling of either the state or province that I’m editing OR entering for the first time as a single listing.
Hope this clarifies it for all.
Many thanks.
j
@Joan
Thanks for the clarification. It is indeed buggy, although the bugs seem to change day to day.
@CJ it seems that Google Maps is slow but I think it appears that way because they fix ‘public’ bugs more quickly than they fix LBC bugs as they perceive that the LBC does not affect end user experience. I would contend that the LBC users’ experience is the end users experience and it should be prioritized.
@Jen
I would be glad to not open bug threads on my blog IF and WHEN they get responded to quickly at your place. I didn’t cover the system error for over a month despite its new worthiness, thinking that you would get it fixed.
Mike
“Like John Kerry in 2004, Google seems to have lost Ohio.”
That is the greatest opening sentence I’ve read in some time. 🙂
okay – it seems that when entering the info the actual state was used. HOWEVER when we tried to do the manual change we still go the same error message. SO it would appear that even if you try to do an edit to a bulk upload via a manual process – it doesn’t allow you to do that. You need to delete all your work and start again.
However; we are still having the same error message happening with our Canadian listings on the french side and we have used the abbreviated 2 character lisitng for the province. I’ll be working on that one today.
So in short… we were responsible IN PART for the issue. However; not for the response when we tried to correct the listings.
I’m still a noob in the sem space please keep updating with articles like this…especially about anything Yahoo it’s funny I really can’y find a lot of blogs adn sites covering Yahoo news anymore…any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
@Ohio Follower
I am not aware of blogs covering Yahoo Local. Perhaps you should start one?
Mike
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