Merged +Local Page - About Section Formatting?

[G2W]

Hi All,

I'm having an issue: I recently merged my Google+ business page and +Local page, and I'm happy it's verified for local search purposes.

However, I am having a supremely difficult time getting the formatting and anchor text links I inserted in the "Edit Business Section to apply; It's just one large chunk of unformatted text.  Of note is the fact that the text content did actually change when approved.

I made a post on Mike Blumenthal's blog about this, and he said that he generally does not recommend merging at all.

Any ideas how to get my formatting and text links approved by the Google+ team?

Any thoughts on the pros and cons of merging Local+ in general?

[MiriamEllis]

Hey David,

Yes, it will be exciting when the new dash is fully rolled out! I do wonder if the upgrade from local to social will be as easy as they say. With Google, few things are easy, right?

[G2W]

Hey Miriam,

I did know that they were adding enhanced capabilities to the new Places, although I did not know it was going to now be that easy to verify.

Traditionally, I've found it a real pain to verify, especially when a PO Box is involved. I did recently realize that I could simply call the Google Local team, though, and things have proceeded much more smoothly from there.

I'm keen to get switched over to the new Places dashboard myself, although when I asked if I could be switched early, they said I'd have to wait until my account was randomly updated (not surprised, I wasn't really expecting them to.)

[MiriamEllis]

Hi David,

Yep, Mike is pretty much 'the man'

What I am so interested in seeing is the ultimate effects the rollout of the new Places for Business dashboard will have. For new businesses, verifying the listing in order to acquire full social features and such is supposed to be just a click a way (so they say) but I haven't gotten to experiment with this with a new listing yet. Mike got to create a test listing. We'll see what happens. Good you know about Mike's blog as he has written a ton over the past couple of weeks about the new dashboard.

[G2W]

Thanks, Miriam.

I had kind of figured Mike was probably right, since he's a very reliable Local SEO guy. It's pretty bothersome that Google would release a product for public use with so many bugs, but I guess it's not really that surprising.

At this point, I am beginning to wish that I had never combined these pages, and am glad I only did it on my own personal account and not for a client.

I think in the future I may just let Places be Places and Plus be Plus until the kinks are all ironed out.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi David,

Unfortunately, Mike's reply is right on the money. The rich text feature of merged pages is really unreliable and I don't know of any solution to this. For some time now, none of the Local SEOs I know have recommended merging to clients, because the whole thing is so wonky. Sorry to hear you're having trouble with this, but I'm not surprised. The ball is in Google's court now to improve their product so that the things they offer actually work.