Merged +Local Page - About Section Formatting?
-
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?
-
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?
-
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.)
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
In 2016, should all businesses have a Facebook page?
Even a couple of years ago, I would have told people that they don't _need _a Facebook page for their business if they don't plan on posting regularly and don't expect many Likes. In 2016, has this changed? Is it weird now for a business not to have a Facebook page, even if it's not particularly active? Is it just widely expected now for every business to have a Facebook page? Even if it's just used for brand awareness/visibility or as a popular directory listing simply to occupy more results on the first page for a branded search?
Branding | | Ria_2 -
Switch to naked domain that has higher page authority
Brilliant Moz community! I just started here and find it so helpful and am confident that I can get an answer to this. Our domain is currently https://www.example.com. I have been wanting to move to https://example.com just for a cleaner URL. To my surprise, https://example.com has the same DA but a significantly higher page authority than our current https://www.example.com. Of course my immediate reaction is to 301 to the https://example.com but I wanted to get some advice and anything we should consider before doing this. My other question would be - how is this possible? I don't remember that we ever used that domain but we also had some rather bad developers a couple of years back. Thank you so much in advance!
Branding | | kris-fannin0 -
Google+ Page Question
When we do a search in Google for our brand name like this "google+ whiteboard creations" we see 2 different G+ pages: 1) https://plus.google.com/b/104564843813332206907/ and 2) https://plus.google.com/+WhiteboardCreations/ #2 is our real one which we are trying to promote, grow, etc, etc. However, I'm not sure where the other one came from. Did Google create it? We have the option to "Delete Page" in the settings, but unsure if it will delete the real page we actively manage. Has anyone else had this issue with multiple pages? Any advice as get into G+ more and more? Thanks in advance everyone! - Patrick
Branding | | WhiteboardCreations0 -
How to Merge Existing Google Local and Google Business pages?
Hey everyone, I'm getting a wee bit frustrated. I have looked at every blog post I can about merging Google Local and Google Business Pages and I can't figure it out. I already have a verified Google Local page here https://plus.google.com/107404063103285095864/about?gl=CA&hl=en-CA and a Google Business Page here https://plus.google.com/b/100116630212547145177/100116630212547145177/posts . Both are already verified. How do I merge these existing profiles which are already verified?
Branding | | jhinchcliffe0 -
Why has Google started to re-write my page titles?
Since earlier this week I've noticed that Google has started to re-write several of our page titles and I'm not entirely sure why - does anyone have any info? We are a UK business and currently have top spot for the keyword 'toilet cubicles' - however, our index.html page title has changed as follows: FROM: Toilet Cubicles | WC Panel Systems for Washrooms | Cubicle Centre TO: Cubicle Centre: Toilet Cubicles | WC Panel Systems for Washrooms Is this Google favouring a more brand-led approach to search? Be interesting to hear everyone's thoughts... Cheers, Craig.
Branding | | cubicle_Craig0 -
Change Primary Image on Google+Local
My old logo did not fit well in the new Google+Local page and so I resized it and uploaded it a couple weeks ago using the Google Places admin tool. I have tried it on multiple locations but it does not show up on the actual Google+ page. The images do show up in the admin tool (so it wasn't that the logo didn't upload properly). I changed the description text to see if any changes were going through and those appeared after about 24 hours. Anyone been able to successfully upload new images to Google+Local?
Branding | | SEOTGT0 -
Should we have customers like our URL or our Facebook brand page?
(Note: main question in bold) I know this post basically establishes that Facebook shares are not a strong cause of increased rankings. But what about likes? I've searched and read through the forum and YouMoz blog but haven't really found this question answered. We just redesigned our site and we're implementing sharing options in the booking and order completion processes - should we point the Facebook Like button to like our URL or our Facebook brand page (currently with 3,800+ likes)? Seems that a like of the URL would be more direct ranking value (what we're going for), but according to that same post mentioned above, Google doesn't crawl or index FB wall pages... so is all Facebook activity - shares, url likes, brand page likes - for naught? (at least for now, till Google starts using that info)
Branding | | DanielH0 -
Travel agents are creating Google Place pages for our properties - is this a bad thing?
I'm currently trying to develop a clear understanding and policy for my company on how we deal with Google place pages, specifically where we stand on places pages being created by our agents. We run a business in the travel industry with a number of locations around the world. Our services are sold via travel agents. Naturally, we set up places pages for each of our locations but recently we've noticed agents setting up places pages for these locations with different titles & their own contact details (same address though). In one case we've received verification postcards which we've been asked to pass on. The pages are set up in 'good faith' to promote business in the agents respective countries and languages but i'm concerned that we are ending up with multiple pages for the same location, hurting our brand, losing our own pages through being buried and ending up with our account being suspended at some point down the line. There are a number of terms on Google guideline page, in particular, this one: "Do not create more than one listing for each business location, either in a single account or multiple accounts." I contacted my Adwords account manager but didn't get a very clear response on this. What i'm looking for is some 3rd party, definitive advice/opinions on this scenario. Should we be asking agents not to create place pages? Why should they list.. could it end up hurting both of us? Are there pros and cons to this or is it a clear cut case?
Branding | | seoec0
