Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Google and Your Business Wrapup – May 15, 2012
Vanessa Schneider, the Community Manager for the Google Places Forum, has taken the initiative to record a video series summarizing key points that have arisen in the Google Places forums during the previous week.
(Note to Google management if you are reading this: GIVE THAT WOMAN A RAISE! She is the best thing to happen to Places since… well…since the introduction of Places.)
Key Takeaways:
-The “We currently do not support this location” bug that erroneously affected a number of listing has been squashed (see this post for details)
-Google rolled out a new Offers and Bulk Upload tools
-The Places Dashboard once again supports the use of a URL (in addition to direct upload) for showing photos
-The bug that caused some Places videos to not show has been fixed
-If you are using a suite number it should be in line 2 of the street address field
© Copyright 2024 - MIKE BLUMENTHAL, ALL RIGHT RESERVED.
Comments
11 Comments
Mike:
Just an observation from prior experiences. Not sure if this has been an issue or not. Entering data in map maker and google places was not consistent in the past. Specifically there were inconsistencies for suite numbers with different opportunities for entering the data.
Could have been the cause of many a merger, duplicate record, lost information. Hopefully that change helps eliminate some of the problems that have arisen over many years.
I agree HUGE raise for Vanessa – like I said on my blog – the new Matt Cutts of Local! LOL! She gives Places a personality and now a face too. 😉
FYI the video bug isn’t fixed. All videos on every Place page I’ve checked are still missing. (Not just my clients but all over the net) What she said was SOME of videos on the missing video forum thread came back.
But from what I can tell ALL videos are still missing. Check competitive terms like Seattle Chiropractors and Beverly Hills Cosmetic Dentistry. All those guys on page one are pretty well optimized and I know MOST had vids. They are all gone.
Exception being, if you just added videos in the last week they may show. I worked on a client last week and theirs showed up instantly. But all my other client videos are still MIA.
Nice to see this Mike… a very good start 🙂
Hi Vanessa,
Very excited about the news in this video blog. Thanks so much for the info.
Regarding the images fix, the new bulk template Google is providing for download does not provide a column for images. When you say Google will now accept the URL with which they were previously having issues, how will we upload those if we want to use the URL. I have a client with over 17,000 listings, so direct upload from the desktop would take forever. If the images have previously been uploaded to Google, during the problem period, will they begin to automatically show up or do we need to re-upload and if so, how do we deal with the missing column on the template. And, what would be the process for uploading the URL for new listings and the new template for furture clients?
Lastly, I am having issues uploading my first client using the new template. After I attempt to upload I get a status bar and it goes half way very quickly and then stalls. After a few seconds I get a small box near the top of the screen that tell me the file was not accepted. It is a large file and I’ve made sure it’s less than 10,000 listings, but still having trouble. Anyone else having this type of issue.
Thanks so much for any assistance you may be able to provide on these issues.
All the best,
Tofer Whitmire
DAC Group
Though I can appreciate her initiative, there wasn’t much on substance. What about the issue of unclaimed, incomplete content listings that are subordinating the owner verified listings (bug)? So the suite number goes on address line 2? OK. What about dupes, clustering, newly populating multiples?
@Jim
This effort was a video to cover weekly issues that either came up or have been resolved and does not pretend to cover long standing architectural issues. It is simply meant as another way for her to communicate fast breaking news.
Thanks for the kind words, guys!
@Tofer Re: URL upload. It’s available for bulk listings. In the “Your Locations” view, right under the words “Your Location,” use the dropdown to select all locations. Click the pencil icon at the top, click “Images,” insert the image URL and “Apply to X selection locations.” Re: the issues with your upload. You should contact our support team directly using the verification contact form on the Places Help Center homepage (under the “Contact Us” section). Select: I tried verifying > I have not yet verified > I am having problems > Fill out form at end, await an e-mail response from a member of the team. If you have any more issues, drop a line in the Google and Your Business forum.
This is very helpful, two of my clients were affected by the “we currently do not support this location” issue and indeed it is fixed now. There are still issues with the videos and pictures. I have a couple of cases where I can see everything on the dashboard but it is not showing on their places listing. Hopefuly, this will be resolved soon.
Thank you for posting!
Keep it up Vanessa! We all appreciate your efforts and hope Google can find a few more like you.
I am an landscaper/masonry in worcester mas and recently my plasce page is “LOCATION IS NOT SUPPORTED’ Ive reported many problems on the to the self help link. and still my page is not being supported, I dont understans its been online for 2 yrs then suddenly gone. Is this a bug or have Ive been flagged and if so I wish someone can call me to fix the problem.
I’ve been on google maps for 6 months and now and everything was going great till all of a sudden my place page is “location is not supported”. I’ve e-mailed google and not had any response. Whats going on?
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