Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
New Flow for Google Places/G+ Page Creation
Googler Jade announced in the forums that newly created Google Plus Pages for local will be visible immediately upon creation. This should make the process more obvious to new businesses claiming in the dashboard.
Hey guys,
A few changes to page creation are rolling out gradually today —
If you’re creating a listing in the new Places for Business dashboard, now, you won’t have to wait to complete PIN verification before you can see the +page, for most businesses. Just follow the link from your dashboard to see the new page. You will be able to use Google+ social features on this unverified page, but please note — you still need to complete PIN verification before the page will start showing up in Google Maps and across other Google properties.
If you’ve got an unverified local Google+ page (made using Google+ in the local business/place category), then we still encourage you to PIN verify this page so that it can start appearing in Google Maps and across other Google properties.
If you’re creating a local Google+ page (using Google+ selecting the local business/place category) for a business that we think is already in Google Maps, then you may need to go through both PIN verification and our admin request flow before you can manage the page.
Thanks,
Jade
© Copyright 2024 - MIKE BLUMENTHAL, ALL RIGHT RESERVED.
Comments
10 Comments
Correct me if I’m wrong, but this sounds like social features are now not optional for creating a new listing in the new Places dashboard. Before this announcement, I believe it was still an opt-in to add the social features after verifying a new listing in the new Places dashboard, right? This seems like one of the final milestones of the inseparability of social and local on the Google-front.
@Kerry
It is not optional. Social features are now included by default in any new claim or upgrade. This might cause some SMBS problems… I wrote an article here: Google+ Pages for Local: An SMB Survival Guide for those that are not quite ready.
In principle this seems like a sensible change to cut down on some of the confusion in the places dashboard for new folks.
Hi Mike,
I used to be able to access the Google Business forum where when could ask questions about Google Local+ Pages. I tried accessing but I couldn’t find it anymore, I know you were very active in the forum so I wanted to know if the forum is still active and I’m just looking in the wrong place or if something changed.
Thanks a lot
Alive, active and staffed by really knowledgable folks: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/business
Thanks Mike! 🙂
My Google + page is separate from my Google Local page. I wonder why they are not merged because they’re both under the same login and gmail account.
@Cathie
It is likely because Google will only merge Local pages with local pages. It is probably because your other page is not a local page but rather a company page. See: How Do I Merge My Google + Pages? Usually You Can’t, Now What?
If they are both local pages then you should call support.
So if I need to set up a Google+ local page and a Google places page, it sounds like now I can do all of it in one place? I’ve been researching this all day and I have come to the conclusion that this is Google’s attempt at merging the two. If I’m wrong, please let me know.
Yes. You can now set up a G+ Page for Local with one step. My preferred place to do that is google.com/places. It can also be done at plus.google.com/dashboard but I like the former better. Both do the same thing.
Comments for this post are closed.