Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Confessions of a Google Enabler: In search of Coupons
Each morning when I rise, I check the RSS feed from the Google Maps Support Forums. I try to answer a few questions from wayward business folks that have no place else to turn. I often feel that in doing so, I am removing from Google the very real burden of providing actual support.
Here is this morning’s helpful response that I gave to a naive business person thinking the Google Coupons might someday be used by a potential customer:
***
Question:
I added a coupon for our various locations yesterday. The admin center says the coupon is active, but I don’t see the coupon anywhere online? Where do customers see the coupon?
Thank you.
****
My answer:
Coupon location is one of the best kept secrets of Google Maps. Even Maps Guide Jen has been known to have trouble locating them. The only entity totally capable of finding them after they have been posted is the GoogleBot. Occassionally they are spotted by humans but only after you have drilled into Maps quite deeply.-In “Text View” there is a link under the business and there is a tab in the stack detailed view
-In “Map View” select “more info” and then it will show in a tab.
-Links or any other indication of their existence are not visible from the main Google search results page.My presumption is that Google is attempting to leave a historical record of life on the planet for distant future archeologists to ponder but that they did not intend for Google Coupons to be used in any manner to which you as a business person or consumer are traditionally accustomed.
Mike B
© Copyright 2025 - MIKE BLUMENTHAL, ALL RIGHT RESERVED.
Comments
8 Comments
Quality writing, Mike. Too bad journalism is a dying industry. On the other hand, the use of clever striking irony is always welcomed in the theater.
Hey Mike,
just wanted to thank you for the support you give! 🙂
Best wishes from germany!
*snort* So I’m not the only one struggling with that one then.
I’ve attempted up to 20X to create new or edit old coupons in an attempt to make my coupons go “live” again, each time without success. Either the changes appear to have been accepted, only to never go live, or I try to create new ones, which for some reason can no longer be done on my account.
Google is doing too much. They need to stick to search, or at least collecting and storing information.
By creating coupons they’re stepping into real world commerce, something outside their domain.
By the way stonehenge I was able to update and get a coupon up recently.
I didn’t even attempt to do the simple thing that one might assume would automatically work.
I used a method that some smart/nice person suggested in google groups at least 1 year ago or longer. I don’t know if the simple process even works.
The suggestion was (and still works this way).
1. Create a coupon.
2. Do not set an expiration date.
3. Enter the coupon through your local business center listing.
4. Go back later and edit the coupon with your intended expiration date.
5. Re enter the new edited coupon with the originally intended expiration date.
Upon seeing this post and comments I reintroduced a coupon without an expiration date. A couple of days later I set the expiration date. It is up and accurate.
Not exactly intuitive is it? LOL……:D
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