Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Issue in "Suggest an Edit" feature of Google My Business
-
"Suggest an Edit" feature of Google My Business is allowing the competitors to change your business details, that too without your prior permission!
I have put together a piece on the issue we faced and you can review the same here:
What are your thoughts on the same and what should be the right solution?
-
Hi Miriam,
Thanks for the link, I will report this incorrect edits to the Google My Business forum.
Thank you so much for your help.
Regards,
Varun
-
Hi Varun,
While you can't disable the suggest an edit feature, you can report incorrect edits to the Google My Business forum:
https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Google-My-Business/ct-p/GMB
Be sure you give the complete details of the listing, the history of the edit that was made, and anything else you can think of that would help. Cross your fingers that a Top Contributor will take a look at your post and help you. Hope this helps!
-
Hi Miriam Ellis,
Thank you so much for your response.
I totally agree with you that "Suggest an Edit" is Google's feature and not a mistake. But editing done by anonymous get published without owner's permission is something could be an issue as it gives everyone the authority to destroy anyone's business as my friend had faced huge down fall in traffic and ranking as well.
In my opinion, anonymous changes should not get live until the owner approves them manually.
In my case, the changes made by anonymous were incorrect and most probably made by any of the competitors. The incorrect information got live without my friend's approval.
Considering this my question is "Is it right in Google's part to allow anyone to edit business information without owner's permission", is there any way out to prevent this?"
-
Hi Varun,
Suggest An Edit is not a mistake on Google's part, as you mention in your blog post, but rather, a feature. Here are some links for further reading on this:
Hope these help!
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
-
Bingplaces.com wanting access to google account
Hello, we have a google my business account. On bingplaces.com it is saying they would like access to our google account. Is that normal for bing to share access with the google my business account? Thanks.
Local Listings | | MeritInsuranceGroup0 -
Trading As Business Name
Some businesses are set us with a company name but trade under another name (or numerous other names). What's the best way to handle this when it comes to Knowledge Graph & Schema.org and what about NAP consistency? Am assuming the only way to handle this is to do something like this: Blue Widgets Ltd trading as Cars UK Or is there a better way?
Local Listings | | GrouchyKids0 -
Former tenant Google Map listing still displays
Our tenant closed their business and we now occupy the address, their Google map still displays, albeit "Permanently Closed" along with ours at the same address. I can't seem to get it removed, it's been 2 years. Help 🙂
Local Listings | | KevnJr0 -
Local SEO Tasks When Closing One Branch of Multilocation Business
I would appreciate the opinions of my fellow SEOs on this one. I haven’t seen any other threads on this exact subject and others that touch on it are somewhat older so I am hoping this also proves to be a good resource for others going forward. I have an existing client that I did local SEO for about a year ago. They are a propane service provider and they had multiple locations. So we did local SEO for the company primarily by updating NAPs and creating more individual content for each of the branches such as specific landing page for each branch on their website and individual listings in citations for each branch. Now they have sold one of the branches to a competitor and they need to remove all listings for it. I am trying to develop a comprehensive list of actions to take and I would appreciate any feedback on the best way to go about accomplishing this task. Here is what I have so far: Remove all mention of sold branch on client website, including specific landing page Delete any branch-specific social media accounts Some specific areas I have questions about are: What do I do with Google My Business listings for the sold branch? Do I try to delete/unregister/close them? Or should I just leave them be with an updated link to our website homepage? Should I even bother contacting the main NAP listing sites to remove the old listing or just leave it to fall off on its own? Thank you again for all your help!
Local Listings | | Ayres-SEO0 -
Local Search and Schema.org - Do I need to tag up the "same as" Property to all my citations to help with local rankings?
Hi All, We have implemented Schema.og on our website and this also includes the local business schema for all of our branches.However I've read an article (see below ) which says we should also be doing "same as " property and linking this to ALL of our citations such as google plus page , yelp , bing places, city search etc etc as this will help with citations. I am wondering if anyone has done this ? - And if so , has this helped with local rankings etc - I don't really want to invest the extra costs to get this done if I can't find anywhere that says its made a difference - The article from whitespark - says - "when you create new citations for your business (or for your client’s), it’s a waiting game hoping that Google and the other search engines will find your new citations quickly and make the connection between those listings, the business, and the website. The “sameAs” property can help make that process much quicker _and _easier. Schema.org explains that the “sameAs” property is used along with the “URL of a reference Web page that unambiguously indicates the item's [or business’] identity.” By using the “sameAs” property in your NAP schema markup, you can tell search engines that the business you’ve marked up is the same one found at a certain citation URL Of course, Google+ isn’t the only important citation source. There’s also Bing Places, Facebook, Yelp, Citysearch and a few others. The nice thing about many schema.org properties is that you can use them multiple times in your markup." I am wondering what peoples thoughts were and whether they has implemented this and if so , did it help ? thanks Pete | [sameAs](http://schema.org/sameAs) | URL | URL of a reference Web page that unambiguously indicates the item's identity. E.g. the URL of the item's Wikipedia page, Freebase page, or official website. |
Local Listings | | PeteC121 -
Does Google Penalize for Hiding Address?
I have a situation where a client is working out of their home. I know that Google does not like when you list a business with a home address so we have hidden the address on Google, but are wondering if Google penalizes businesses for hiding it? When listing them to other directories we do our best to find ones that we can hide the first line of the address. But does that matter? Should we just be listing to our normal directories with the address visible? Does a mix of hidden addresses and visible ones hurt your rankings? Thanks in advance for your help!
Local Listings | | JohnWeb120 -
How to submit a new business in Factual
I am trying to create citation for my client sites in Factual.com. As, I am not a hardcore developer, I wont be able to use the API as mentioned in the Factual website. It also provides a lit of Trusted Data Contributors, which are paid third party service providers. I would like to know, whether it is possible to create a business listing in Factual, by using any other means than these two options.
Local Listings | | ArthurRadtke1 -
Adding multiple locations business to directories
We have multiple locations business.
Local Listings | | VicMark
Adding each location business info to directories. There are same services and everything for each location. Should we keep the same description for all listings or different for each location?
Should we indicate Home Page URL (with 800 number, no address in footer) or location URL?0