No option to claim listing in Google Places: country-wide issue
-
Hi, All!
We were trying to advise a client about local SEO, and we ran into the issue of - their Google Places pages (yes, they have several, that's a separate issue) are "unclaimable." Meaning - up at the top of the page there is neither a "Edit this page - Business Owner?" heading or a "Edit this listing - Owner-verified listing" heading. When you try to claim it independently using the phone number (all pages have the same phone number, but different addresses), Google gives you "No address found for this phone number" and the option to now add a new page, which is not quite what we're looking for. This is an Israeli location, and this appears to be an issue with a few other random Israeli pages I checked (I saw pages with neither heading option). But a number of the Israeli pages have "Owner-verified listing." How did they get it?
Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Regards,
Aviva
-
Aviva - good luck, and yes, I'd love it if you could update this thread if you get a response. Maybe title your forum thread something like: Whole Parts Of Israel Excluded From Places? That might get a rep's attention.
-
Hi, Miriam!
Thanks for the response. Still no answer at the Google Places help forum. I think I may start a new thread with more of an attention catching title and see if that draws a Google rep. It can't be an account penalty, because I've done a number of places searches and checked a good number of places pages (different genres and locales in Israel), and you either see "Owner-verified listing" or nothing. I have not yet once seen "Business owner?" And when I try to "claim" some of the unclaimed listings using telephone lookup, I continually get the response of "no business found..." I've tried to input the phone number in the format they tell you to: 02-123-4567, and also in the format used on the Places page (with the international code) - +972 2-123-4567 - to no avail. I'll keep this thread posted in the hopeful event that we find a solution....
Thanks!
-
Hi Aviva, I see you started a thread at the Google Place Help Forum about this, which is exactly what I would have recommended doing. I cannot find any documentation of a situation similar to yours. You are either dealing with a bug, or a possible penalty of the account - that would be my best guess. I know my neighbors to the north (Canada) frequently bemoan the fact that they are under-served by Google Places, in comparison to the U.S., and the fact may be that non-US businesses are dealing with even more problems, bugs and exclusions than we are here. I'm really hoping you can get a Google rep to respond to your question as the scenario you are describing does not appear to be common. Good luck!
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
-
What happens if I structurally uploaded two different images under the same name? Will Google penalise me for it?
Hi, we are a self storage company (www.boxie24.com) and for every url (500 url's) we use 1 head image containing the keyword of the url, so for instance: https://www.boxie24.com/en-us/self-storage-west-village the main image on top is self-storage-west-village-sm.jpg. It was uploaded months ago. Now we are adding more images between the content. But we call them: self-storage-west-village-sm.jpg as well and self-storage-west-village-boxie24-storage-sm. But for almost every url we have "duplicate image name". Is that bad and should we fix it or is it ok? It are different images though. I noticed it today, the images have the same name
Image & Video Optimization | | Boxie24TEAM0 -
Can Google crawl this type of content?
Dear all, I have already asked few questions like that but its some different. it is videos portal. All videos are on server side like on JWS server. when page is loaded after that my video is loaded on loading time dynamically. But Google is unable to read all content of my videos. I have done all the things in sitemap as well. Can Google fetch the video content which is pure dynamic? Please have a look my issue. than only static few pages are coming in Google and two three videos. Please help me anyone regard this. Please guys...........
Image & Video Optimization | | docbeans0 -
Is this business considered a SAB to Google?
Hi All, We have a client who designs and installs custom closets, garage systems, wall beds, home offices, etc. They have a showroom that displays all this for their potential customers to visit. I have hidden the address for this business but the client has an idea that, since they have this showroom that customers can go to, they should not be considered a SAB. My issue is with this part of Google's quality guidelines "If you don't conduct face-to-face business at your location, you must select "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations"" This client does occasionally conduct face-to-face business at the location BUT they serve the customers at their locations. Opinions and suggestions greatly appreciated!
Image & Video Optimization | | AmberRobinson0 -
Google categories for local limousine service
I manage the Google places page for a SAB (local limousine company). The question is, should I add "taxi" and "airport shuttle service" as categories? I have listed only "limousine" and "car service' for now and I want to play it safe although those 2 are related to limo service. Sometimes people refer to limo service as "taxi service" or they are inquiring about prices for shuttle service to the airport and they end up booking the service quite often. Does Google look to our website to find these words in the content? Google Analytics show lots of people are finding us through those two keywords as well although you cannot find the word “taxi" on our website. The interesting thing is that when searching for "taxi + my zip code" the company shows up 4th on maps results and when searching for "shuttle service + my zip code”, the company shows up 2nd on local results and also 2nd in organic results. Is this enough to make me add these 2 categories? Second question is about the area served, does it make a difference (in rankings) if I choose “Distance from one location"over"List of areas served"? What happens is the red pin would be in a different location. If I choose "Distance from one location" the pin would be right in the center of the city (which I think it shouldn't matter anymore that much since the proximity to the centroid is not a ranking factor anymore). If “list of area” served is selected, (the city name will be chosen) then the pin would be about 5 miles West of the city center. Any thoughts will be appreciated. Thank you!
Image & Video Optimization | | echo10 -
Video SEO: Should I add Video Transcriptions to You Tube Videos Even with Google CC?
So, You Tube allows plenty of room from descriptions. I think 5,000 characters. Google does a poor Closed Caption of our audio. Should I also be adding accurate transcriptions to the description field in YouTube to help my Video SEO. What are the pro's cons and is it worth doing?
Image & Video Optimization | | BlairKuhnen1 -
Google local question - over optimization?
I run a law firm with multiple practice areas (bankruptcy, probate, estate planning, personal injury). I have a google places page with those categories listed. I recently spoke with an seo company (that cold called me...) that told me that it was "black hat" to try to optimize a local campaign for more than one of those practice areas. That doesn't seem right to me. Any thoughts?
Image & Video Optimization | | richardslaw0 -
Google Places - Category Question
Hi All. Just wanted to double check something with you folks. I've always been under the impression that you should complete the first category option in Places with a default category from Google's list of options, followed by 4 categories of your choice. However, does the 1st category need to be a default option or can it be any one of the 5? Also, do you think anything is gained in the rankings by adding a category of your own choice as the 1st category? There's nothing in the Quality guidelines that suggests the 1st category needs to be a default option, so I thought I'd throw this out there... http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?answer=107528
Image & Video Optimization | | PerchDigital0 -
Strange behaviour at google places
Hello Seomoz! I have strange behaviour at google places with one company. I have submitted company Air Condition SPB to goole places and it was on the 13th page at google places (keyword "продажа кондиционеров Санкт-Петербург"), and after some days it disappeared from google places at all for that keyword and many others. After that I did changes in company name at google places and that company appeared at google places again. And I was watching this strange behaviour at google places for that company many times. Could you tell me what can cause that strange behaviour? Thank You, Dmitri
Image & Video Optimization | | zhuk0