Google is sending out a new My Business Report via email to verified owners of listings. The report is attractive with meaningful calls to action to visit the My Business or to contact Google Help even if the report is glaringly inaccurate. On the several reports that I have received so far, the review number for the month over counts the number of reviews received on Google by anywhere from 3 or 5. You would think that Google could count better. This lack of accuracy on the review received calls into question the other stats as well or at least makes them suspect.

The links to email, calling and the help center are a welcome and clear messaging that should drive folks to those support options before they go to the forums. I love the idea of monthly reporting if that is what this is. In the past Google has sent these types of reports out one month but then never again. Thumbs up for sending and the clear call to action, thumbs down for the inaccuracy. Judgement pending on the regularity.

Update: Linda Boquet pointed out a post in the forums that really highlights a signficant issue with the report for multi location businesses:

Since the company name is the same at each address the emails we received were all identical. The subjects are all the same and the content of each email is the same (save for the number of people who saw the business and asked for directions). There is no information contained that would allow us to quickly ascertain which location we are reviewing data for without clicking the link to view details. As you might imagine, when you have 450 locations that isn’t terribly practical.

Obviously, correctly identifying which location the report applies to is critical. Equally important for businesses in this situation would be some sort of roll up report. That assumes that Google will do this report more than once.