Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Google Maps confirms Bulk Upload Whitelist Program for LBC
In early June, reports surfaced of a new beta program that allows a Local Business Center account’s bulk uploads to be whitelisted after approval by Google. Google has confirmed this program and estimates that it will be live in the Local Business Center in several months.
Here a correspondence from last week with Carter Maslan, VP of Maps:
MB: I have received several emails concerning Google’s whitelisting of bulk uploads for use in the Maps index. Would you be able to share program details and specifics as to how an agency might get approved under this program?
Carter: We’re still working out the process for whitelisting, but we should be able to start introducing it soon (within a couple months). It is geared towards people that are acting as sole agent of a single business in publishing locations (typically an employee of the business supplying a feed of chain/office locations, but perhaps also a person that the business has contracted). So whitelisting is not at the Agency-level; instead it’s at the individual business level where that business may have hired an employee or SEM consultant to do its work.
Does that make sense?
MB: Are you saying that it will be an LBC level procedure? If so what is involved in obtaining the status?
Carter: Yes. For example, if you’re signed-in to the LBC account that contains the bulk upload of all the Acme Widget Company locations, then you’d request whitelisting of that feed in that account.
MB: So you are saying that it will be a brand by brand, case by case level approval? Will the request structure be formalized within the LBC or will it stay the “figure out if you can” sort of thing?
Carter: Maybe not quite brand by brand. For example, if a parent corporation has multiple brands and they’ve hired someone to handle all their various franchise locations, we *may* want to enable whitelisting of the corporation’s feed; we haven’t finished working that out exactly. But generally, we want the user account to correspond to a single business brand to help ensure quality/accuracy.
In terms of process, we’re still working through that; but there will likely be a link in LBC to request whitelisting.
It is unclear if the beta program is still open and how one would join. Regardless, an improved and secure bulk upload would be a welcome change.
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Comments
9 Comments
The bulk whitelisting upload feature is a very welcome initiative. As a participant in the beta proces I have currently enabled it for some clients and it appears to be working (verified listings without unverified label).
As an agency you should be able to gain access by getting in contact with your Google rep.
Great News! Thanks for the update and I am excited to see the program role out. The LBL is getting a bit more user friendly all the time, and I like the fact that a solid corp can cut down its upload time substantially. I wonder if they will ever whitelist a sem (after multiple users are allowed to access the account). A company could become LBL certified! Now that would be a great thing. Fat chance though.
@Martijn
A number of folks have reported that their adwords reps are clueless about the whitelist beta.
@Mike R
The LBC is still not very friendly from my perspective if you manage multiple accounts. It doesn’t handle multiple listings very well and their is currently no Analytics like capability to allow multiple users with different permissions to access LBC stats and/or update data. It can’t move their too quickly from my perspective.
@mike
maybe their budget spend on Adwords is too low 😉
The Adwords rep should forward internally to Maps team. Many of my questions are forwarded as well. I don’t expect my Adwords rep. to answer all kinds of difficult questions about something what is not their task or expertise at Google. They are often kind enough to forward the questions.
This is most welcome news. Though I wish that they would consider whitelisting on an Agency level rather than a brand level. I can see it being very difficult for Google to ascertain affiliates to a larger company with any type of efficiency. However; I understand not every client is going to have an agency working on their behalf.
Very interesting that Martijn has an in with his Adwords reps. I’ll have to work with our SEM team and see if they have an “in” with the Adwords folks to get answers for questions. 🙂
My understanding is that you need one LBC account per client and it gets approved at that level. This way, the client can have their LBC back if they want it.
Yes thats the way it should be in my opinion although it can be time consuming. Better would be an adwords like multi client center (MCC) you can use with the agency at the top level. Maybe this is something for the Google Accounts team to take a look at the possibilities.
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