Anybody know of a way to speak directly to a Senior Level Associate in the Google Maps Dept?

[jasonleerogers]

I have a client who's Places listing is marked as being permanently closed (has been for three weeks). We were ranking in top spot on local for 2 years +/- and now nothing. Nowhere. Where we do show up, it says permanently closed. (They are not closed).

This is the response I received:

"After investigating your problem, we've found that it is being caused by a technical issue and our engineers are pursuing a resolution. At this time, they do not have an estimate on when the issue will be resolved, but please know that they are actively working on improving the Google Maps and Google+ Local experience for our users."

This was three weeks ago.

Here is listing: https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+Davis+Law+Firm,+LLC/@35.0796228,-106.6070767,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x4750748d0724dd7c?hl=en

Any suggestions?

[jasonleerogers]

Miriam,

Thank you for the in-depth response. I really appreciate it. I have yet to try the null approach. This business is in good standing, and has been for the 4 years I've worked with them. We did change website the domain name recently, and TDLF did relocate almost a year ago.

A great deal of leads came from mobile search, which, of course, come from local places listings and this has caused a serious drop in phone calls. Ben (the owner) noticed immediately, before even knowing what had happened. One thing we did take into consideration, is that other law firms sometimes play dirty. I'm wondering if someone could have flagged this as being closed in an effort to "get ahead". I know of other law firms I work with who claim that other firms will engage in similar behavior by clicking on PPC ads of competitors' - knowing that an "injury attorney in Denver" ad may cost $30-40 per click. We've even caught competitors bidding on our firm's names, which lead to a landing page about why not to hire that firm, yada yada yada.

So...yesterday I actually spent 3 hours on the phone and was able to reach the person who, supposedly, in charge of the "map" in the entire state of New Mexico. For some reason I have doubts about this, but we'll see what kind of response we get.

It just seems like there would be a "switch" somewhere with the options: Open or Closed.

I'll post an update when I resolve this...if I have anything going for me its persitence. I once reached the CEO of a well known airline after 4 hours on the phone - when my bags were misplaced.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Jason,

Oh, I hate that canned message from Google! If you do a search for the language of it in the Google And Your Business Forum, you'll see it's one Google sends out in a ton of different situations. I am not currently seeing a mass influx of reports of this message in that forum, but that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't a mass issue going on. Some questions:

Did you recently make any changes to listing?

Are you still able to access the listing via the dashboard? If so, are there any messages/warnings?

If you can access the listing, have you tried performing a null edit? If not, it might be worth a try. (In case you're not familiar with this, all you have to do is log in, hit the button to edit the listing in the dash, don't change anything, but then save as though you have made a change). In some cases, this can refresh the situation and resolve some problems ... but only in some cases.

How did you receive the above message from Google? How did you report the issue?

Regarding the question in the title of your post, if you've received an email from Google, you have, in essence, already heard from their engineers. Three weeks is definitely not an adequate amount of time for things to get rectified in Google land, but that doesn't mean you can't attempt other methods of flagging their attention. Here are 2 suggestions:

1. Go through the troubleshooter that leads to a phone call. Click the Contact Us link on this page while logged into the account associated with the listing: https://support.google.com/places/#topic=1656871 Proceed via the blue 'Call Us' button.

2. Start a thread in the Google And Your Business Forum begging for help from the Top Contributors there who have the ability to escalate your issue to Google staff, if they so choose. https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/business

It may be that you will just have to wait this out. Without knowing the details of the business and the situation, I can't offer any more specific advice, but I do think it would be worth it to try one or both of the help options I've described. I'm so sorry you've received that dread message. What a headache. Good luck, and if you get this resolved, it would be nice if you could update this thread with how things went.

[dsinger]

better pop some popcorn.  it may be a while before you hear anything from anyone regarding Google Maps or Google+ Local.  They don't make money off of those services, so they don't care how long they take to get anything done.

I have been trying to get images updated for almost 4 months without any luck.  I have also been trying to migrate to the new dashboard for places for business for over a year without any luck.

Google really sucks for support for products they don't generate income from.