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Hi Scott,
I am not aware of a process for what you describe, unfortunately. Obviously, you would want to make sure the info has been manually corrected at Google+ Local, Axciom, InfoGroup and Localeze, but I'm not sure even these major providers will ensure that a closed business message is replicated across the board. You've asked a really interesting question and maybe others in the community will have new feedback on this. In the meantime, I recommend you read:
Hi Mr. Partyman,
In my opinion, because you are already established with your first business at the street address, the best thing to do would be to get a Suite A, just for the second business.
As Sanket has pointed out, it's critical that each business has its own phone number, business name and Google categories, as well as its own address, so be sure you are making these totally distinct.
Hope this helps!
Hi Little Bigman,
You've asked a good question. Let me refer you to Google's own guidelines regarding this scenario:
Business Location: Use a precise, accurate address to describe your business location.
So, basically, it's fine if you rent a small office, so long as it is staffed and accepts walk-in traffic during your listed business hours. Any other arrangement (with the exception of ATM machines!) is not allowed. Using virtual offices or P.O. boxes is strictly forbidden. Better to use your home address if you're just starting out and then go through the procedures for trying to have the address not displayed, if you have privacy concerns. Fortunately, this is one area in which Google's guidelines, above, are totally clear. Hope it helps to read them. You can access the complete guidelines here: https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en
Just popping in to add my voice to the choir. I agree with the consensus here that the URLs are too long. You are smart to be concerned about overoptimization, and I think it would be worth the effort to create new URLs and redirect the old ones.
Hi Sangeetac,
With the new dashboard, I believe most/all verifications are now postcard only. So, simply follow through with postcard verification and then you'll be able to complete the process by entering the postcard pin number into the dash. Takes a bit longer, because you have to wait for the postcard, but typically only 1-2 weeks these days.
Hi Zach,
I want to be sure I am understanding your question. I'm not sure what you mean by having both a Google Places page and a Google+ Local page for your business. Google Places is currently still in existence as a dashboard for Google+ Local. See: http://support.google.com/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2623007
Now, your query is kind of special, because of the nature of your business. Back in early 2010, Google stopped showing true local results for web design and seo firms and certain other types of marketing firms (see: http://www.searchengineguide.com/miriam-ellis/google-shoves-their-liaisons-off-maps.php) I believe that there may have been 2 factors involved in this decision: 1) heavy spamming in those verticals and 2) a belief that such businesses are more virtual than local.
As you can see in this Mike Blumenthal article from just last month, Google continues to treat these categories of businesses differently, when it comes to Local: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/11/12/google-local-search-results-where-none-have-gone-before/
Because of this, any efforts you make with Google's Local products will be hampered by the fact that they do not choose to display website design companies in their true blended/local results, though I believe it's still possible to exist within maps.google.com.
However, Local SEO Andrew Shotland had a highly-publicized experience with his SEO company and Google last February that is worth reading about, if you haven't already: http://www.localseoguide.com/hey-seos-if-google-maps-calls-dont-answer/
I hope these resources will prove helpful, and if you would like to return with further clarification about what you mean in regards to having both a Google+ Local page and a Places Page, I would be glad to read it. Please, link to objects whenever you can. Thanks!
Hi Ruben,
They display in the Knowledge Panel, as well:
But, no, if you are an e-commerce site, these types of local reviews aren't really meant for your business.
Hi Dino!
Agree with Anthony that those are unique and that the main concern here is to be certain that your content on those pages is unique. Definitely a challenge with 1200 pages, but fortunately, there should be totally unique things to do in each of those cities, so it's quite possible to manage this.
Hi Ant71,
So sorry for the disappointment. You are correct that Moz Local currently only supports the US. WhiteSpark's services are excellent, in terms of citation surfacing, development and cleanup. Many UK folks are also big fans of Bright Local. You might like to check them out! Hope these recommendations help.
Just popping by to endorse Bede's excellent replies on this thread, Carin. As he's said, going upstream to correct underlying data problems and then doing various searches to find any instance of the incorrect business title is the work you'll need to do. One wrong listing can be propagated in dozens of places and you've got to try to edit them all or Google will continue to be influenced by them.
Hi Ruben,
Hmm, that's a good question. Are there industry-related review sites for his type of business? For example, there are sites that feature reviews of cameras, sites that feature reviews of books. There are product review sites, but I'm a bit stumped as to whether such a platform would exist for selling buildings, as a product. The client probably knows this about his own industry better than I would. If such a thing doesn't exist, are there at least professional/business organization where he can receive a review or rating? Kind of like the BBB? Seems to me like this would take some good research to figure out where the industry-related platforms are.
Hi Matthew,
Well, I'm fascinated! If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that the business seems to rank better in the local pack during the hours you've stated it is open for business on the Google+ Local page. This is something I've not seen documented anywhere, but I just spoke with Nyagoslav Zhekov of WhiteSpark.ca and he mentioned that he had once come across a discussion in which a business was failing to rank apparently because their stated hours of operation wrongly represented the business as only being open in the middle of the night.
I don't have any documentation or examples, but an anecdote like this does make one have to consider that Google may well take hours of operation into consideration. I am curious about what your client's business model is, if you can share. Like a retail shop, an emergency service? I wonder if it could be more of a factor in certain industries. Google must get it that people looking for certain things might want them right away. For example, if I'm searching for a pizza, I'd probably want to know which restaurants are open right now. If I'm searching for a lawyer ... maybe not so much.
I'd be interested to read any other details you can provide. As I've said, this isn't a well-cited phenomenon, so you may be breaking some ground here with what you've noticed.
Hi Masterworksintl,
Bede is offering you good advice. You need to report the closed business as closed, and also engage in work to remove/edit any references across web that feature the old address. This can be a big job, so be prepared to spend some time on in, or hire a professional citation editor to do the work for you. It's amazing how many citations of a business can appear around the web in even 6 months' time.
Hi Sam!
It might be helpful to start with a little clarification here - in Local SEO, the term 'testimonials' tends to indicate direct-to-business owner content while the term 'reviews' typically indicates content that exists on a third party platform. In researching this topic, it would likely be better to search for 'reviews' rather than 'testimonials' as you are talking about third party reviews.
Mike Blumenthal wrote a great little post about this earlier this year:
http://blumenthals.com/blog/2014/04/24/using-google-reviews-on-your-website/
Hope it helps!
Hi Marco,
This is a newish, on-going issue. I recommend that you read the following:
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/business/Pdx32sVSYYQ/Cczh_52JkjYJ
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/business/WqaZiBWF3Ec
Hi John,
Oh, those pending states are so frustrating. So, there could be many things causing this, but let's take a look at your Google+ Local page. I am seeing something on it that I've never seen anywhere before. Your business description looks like this:
Shearer Painting is a Seattle Painting Contractor started in 1990, a full service painting contractor recognized as one of Seattle's Top ten painting contractors.
find out more information aboutHistoric House Painting, Wood Staining and finishing, Benjamin Moore PaintSee a walk through of interior painting project on a historic home and a Seattle House Painting project on a 1913 built home- You shouldn't be using the word 'Seattle' in your business description. It's not in the written guidelines, but many people in the Local SEO community believe that the use of GEO terms triggers a penalty.- But the thing that is really jumping out at me is the links in the description. I've never ever seen that before. I didn't even know you could put links in the description. My eyes popped open, and I have to wonder if there is any chance that this is the root of your pending status.According to Google And Your Business Forum TC, Joy Hawkins:"_If a listing's status goes back to pending after being active, it could be any number of issues, including a quality guidelines violation, and needs to be evaluated on an individual basis."_See:
http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/local-search/1278-pending-status-after-verification.htmlSo, perhaps there is a problem with that description, but on the other hand, as you've moved, I'm curious about the steps you took with your Google+ Local listing. These days, Google's advice is that if you move, you're supposed to close your old listing and open a new one, though there has been much debate in the Local SEO and MapMaker communities about whether it's possible to avoid this if you move within the same city. How did you handle your move?Regarding reviews, yes, it is common to lose them when you move. Google considers your new location a new place.What attempts have you made to communicate with Google? What response have you received.Interestingly, as your listing is live, John, how exactly is the pending status affecting you beyond a note in the dashboard? And, apparently, loss of G. Places analytics data?Can you provide some further information? Moves and pendings are complex, and in the end, communication with Google will likely be the only way to resolve your issues, but I'd be very interested in your answers to my questions and will help more if I can.
Hi Jamie!
If you're talking about the Google Local Knowledge Panel, then this post by Mike Blumenthal is the best I know of for working to achieve one http://localu.org/blog/local-knowledge-panel-doesnt-show-google-can/ but if your business isn't local then this type of display wouldn't apply to you.
Hi WMCA,
In addition to Vadim's good suggestions, you'll need to consider the possibility that you may be dealing with a duplicate listing. If the hours of operation in your dashboard do not match the hours being shown on the live listing, it could be that Google is pulling those hours from a duplicate Google+ Local listing. To see how to discover duplicate listings, read this article:
Hi Anton, Is your business local or virtual? If local, then yes, city landing pages are extremely common and typically contain the city name in the URL of the landing page. However, it is key with these types of pages to be sure that you are creating unique, high quality content that will be of value to the user. Do not simply duplicate content and change out city keywords across multiple pages. That would be spammy. City landing pages work well for service radius businesses like plumbers, landscapers and general contractors, because the staff travel to clients in a number of cities. They are not as good of a fit for brick-and-mortar businesses like dentists, restaurants or retail shops, because in such cases, all clients come from their locations to the locale of a business. If a brick and mortar business wants to write about cities other than its city of location, it has to discover a valid reason for doing so. For example, a doctor located in City A might have hospital privileges in City B and give seminars in City C, giving a good reason for him to publish content about his involvement in these other cities. But, to simply create pages for cities in which he has no involvement, just because he hopes patients living in those cities might travel to him, doesn't really make sense So, what you do with your city landing pages is a case-by-case situation. One rule covers all scenarios - always build unique, quality content on the pages with the goal of helping users.
Hi Souk!
Good question. I'm not totally clear on what you mean by SEO-friendly reviews. Any review that can be found and crawled will be a help to your customers and to bots, so I wasn't sure if there was something beyond this you were asking about.
If your business is local, than in nearly any industry, the two major players are going to be Google and Yelp. There are, indeed, others like Bing, Yahoo, etc. and beyond these basics, there may be industry-relevant review platforms where you want to be sure you are listed.
Phil Rozek of Local Visibility System authored the most comprehensive post on this topic back in 2013. Not too much has changed in the review world in the last 1-2 years, so I believe you'll find some really good info here on major players, plus some tips for determining review platform quality:
Beyond the majors, you should research industry-specific sites that support reviews. Diversity is very healthy when it comes to this area of marketing.
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:
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.
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.
Hi Jared,
Definitely go with option 1. Yes, it will take time to establish yourself in the new city, but you don't want to undo what you've accomplished for the old city if you still have a location there. A healthy helping of patience is pretty much a prerequisite for opening a new branch. Make a plan for steadily accomplishing the following for your new business:
Re-optimizing core website pages to reflect your new corporate headquarters
Developing new content on the website to feature the new city
Building your new citation set for the new location
Engineering a review acquisition program from the new location
Creating social outreach for the new location
Looking for link opportunities for the new location (see this totally awesome post by Phil Rozek: http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2015/02/05/the-best-bleepin-local-link-questionnaire/)
Making your real-world outreach into the new community, offline
Consider temporary hyperlocal PPC to gain some visitors to your new pages
When you start to look at the list of things you'll be doing, it becomes pretty clear that none of this is going to happen overnight. It took you time to gain good visibility in Detroit - it's going to take time to do the same in Sioux Falls. Hone your creativity at this exciting new time for your business and stick with the process and you'll begin to make the kinds of gains you ultimately hope to achieve. Good luck and congratulations on your new office!
Moosa is correct. It's perfectly fine to have your 3 offices in structured data in the footer. I recommend having a unique page for each office, as well, with complete, structured NAP for the location at the top of each respective page, as well as including all three on your contact page.
Hmm .. yes, I'm able to replicate that following your steps in Maps, but when you actually click through to the reviews, these bolds are gone. Honestly, I have no idea what they are doing there in the review snippets (as in your screenshot). They don't have anything to do with the search term. Looking at a nearby laundromat in Buffalo, I don't see the same behavior:
So - sorry, but I'm just not sure what those bolds represent. If anyone else has come across this, please chime in!
Hi Mark,
Best practice is to create a number of different descriptions - maybe 5-10 of them, just to vary things up. However, you cannot prevent duplication even if you create a different description for each entity, because of the way certain data sources populate the data of other websites. So, duplication, to some degree, is baked into the citation building process and, thus, is unlikely to have a serious, negative effect. So, go ahead and write a handful of different descriptions to use, but don't fret over this area too much, because you can't avoid a certain level of duplication.
Hi Kevin,
Google's review product has been buggy since day one, but as of the rollout of the new Google+ system, the rise in review issues has been totally astronomical. The Google and Your Business Forum is literally drowning in complaints about this.
Read Mike Blumenthal's quick post: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/07/30/google-local-and-review-issues/
And here's another one from Mike that's been widely cited: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/09/24/asking-for-reviews-post-apocalypse/
I have seen lots and lots of threads in the Google forum about reviews being visible when logged in, but not in public.
Here's one: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/business/XQYWVOCFebc
Here's another: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/review$20only$20visible/business/9ro8W8hzKiM/CALKB8W7vwAJ
I wrote a post here at SEOmoz back in August on the subject of lost reviews:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lost-your-google-reviews-take-a-proactive-stance
However, despite the efforts of things like the Mike Blumenthal consolidated thread of lost reviews (referenced in my above blog post) the review system continues to be totally broken. This is a cause of huge frustration, particularly since Google has made it increasingly difficult to even leave a review. When so many of them get filtered out, the appeal of making an effort to review a business is certainly diminished. Google is basically trying to fight spam - which is good - but they are throwing the baby out with the bathwater in too many cases when it comes to reviews.
Hi Fastrack!
Yeah, it's an interesting decision. For now, they're gone. But, there's always the possibility that this feature could reappear at some later date in a new form, with new chosen sources. We'll see.
Hi Blair,
I am a bit surprised, too, by the advice you were given. I wonder if the rep could possibly have been thinking of this entry under the heading of 'ineligible business models' on the Google Places Quality Guidelines:
"Rental or for-sale properties, such as vacation homes or vacant apartments, are not eligible to be listed on Google Maps and should not be verified. Instead, verify the listing for your sales or leasing office or offices. If you have a property with an on-site office, you may verify that office location"
It says right there in the guidelines that if you have a property with an onsite office, you can verify it, and that appears to be what you are describing, even if it will be closing in three years. I guess maybe it's a grey area and you probably shouldn't go against what Google has told you.
If, despite what they said, you decide to go ahead with the plan, it's a bit hard to advise you. Right now, if a business needs to be closed, there are specific options, some of which are described well in the Google And Your Business Forum thread:
But, what the options will be 3 years from now, who can say? So, you'd probably need to look into this again when the time comes.
You would also need to try to shut down any citations you may have built, or they may cause a new Google+ Local page to be automated. Hope this helps!
My pleasure, Tom! Google reviews are important, for sure - widely considered to be a ranking factor in their algo, but I'd advise the doctor to get reviews in a variety of places, just so that all his eggs aren't in one basket.
Hi Fastrack,
Odd coincidence that you should ask. You'll want to read this:
http://localu.org/blog/google-more-reviews-links-removed-from-knowledge-panel/
This feature has just disappeared from the knowledge panel. Something's up. Don't miss the comments on the post.
Hi Sarah,
Good discussion going on here. If you feel you need to pay for support, then I suppose you'll have to pay for it. I want to add to this discussion a recommendation that you check out a couple of posts of 2013 by Nyagoslav Zhekov on the state of Yahoo! Local. Their local product definitely has some issues:
http://www.ngsmarketing.com/yahoo-starts-pushing-yext-powerlistings-white-labeled-aggressively/
http://www.ngsmarketing.com/yahoo-local-little-care/
Hope these provide some extra food for thought!
Hi Jesse, If you know they are planning to move in the next few months, I would definitely hold off on anything. You don't want to have to go back and re-do the work. Right now, Google+ Local does not support multi location businesses. Multi location businesses and claim/manage their listings via the old Google Places dashboard. I highly recommend a careful read of this post on the subject of merging: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/08/10/google-business-pages-to-merge-or-not-to-merge-that-is-the-question/ Hope this helps!
Hi Li,
Google+ Local is pretty much essential for any local business. These days, direct links to the Google+ Local page are very hard to find due to cosmetic changes Google has been making to the way they present data, but, the information you provide in the Google My Business dashboard is what will then be displayed in the local packs of results, the local finder view, Google Maps and any Knowledge Panel results you have. So, yes, it's really important.
While it's true that customers now have the freedom to leave reviews whenever and wherever they wish to, there are 3 very important things to consider regarding this.
1. All of your competitors are in the same boat. They face the reality of both positive and negative reviews, and to fail to join in is likely going to cost you business.
2. The best insurance against earning too many negative reviews is awesome customer service. Do your best job in training your staff to treat customers excellently and you should mainly earn positive reviews.
3. And here's something quite fascinating. Surveys like this one from GetFiveStars indicate that a core motivation for consumers is to reward excellent service. While it's true that some consumers are also motivated to leave reviews when service was really negative, it can lessen concern to realize that the business owner is actually in a position of great control if the excellent service he provides can generate the positive reviews he wants to earn.
Hope this helps!
Hi AvalanceSearch,
Great questions. Let me address them in order.
That being said, it is certainly permissible to go this way, just so as you have a sense of historic problems that could potentially come up for clients.
It's fine to have a different name and same address in the multi-partner scenario. But, if you can, do give each partner a different phone number at which they can be directly contacted during stated business hours. The main reason for doing so is to lessen the chances of merged listings.
Yes, definitely point an individual practitioner's citations to his unique page on the website. Again, this helps reduce the likelihood of merges and provides a better user experience.
Hope this helps!
That's correct, Jesse. You've understood this correctly. Hopefully, we'll see functionality of this kind in 2013!
Hi Rob,
This is one of those issues where I have mixed feelings. Google's John Mu definitely stated that Google views testimonials and reviews as different, and here is some discussion surrounding his comments about this:
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/wY1vF2RRos4/discussion
https://plus.google.com/+JoyHawkins/posts/J6772rFU1VG
So, where do I personally fall in on this? Seeing John Mu recommend removal of markup is a pretty strong recommendation and as I always advise complying with Google's guidelines, I would typically agree with this, but at this point, the grey area for me is that I've not seen this become an official guideline, so there's some uncertainty on this. I know I am still seeing local business sites with testimonial markup and I would be surprised if they are actually being penalized for this, but, at the same time, John's comment has mostly called into question whether there is any value at all in making this effort to markup testimonials. It simply may not be worth it, but I say that with the proviso that it will not surprise me one little bit to see Google change their stance again on this next week, next month, next year. So, that's pretty much where I am with this. Hopefully reading the above discussions will help you form an educated opinion.
Hi Ruben,
Suite vs. Ste. does not matter. Nor does Ave. vs. Avenue, St. vs Street, etc. What needs to be consistent is the numbers and spelling of your street address, but abbreviations like the above do not matter.
Interestingly, it just came to my attention this morning that Google appears to have made a recent change in how they are displaying second line data. Instead of suite or unit, everything seems to have been replaced by the # sign. Go do some searches and see if you see this, too. A little change!
Hi Dan,
LCnetwork's second response does a really good job of clarifying the situation and your opportunities.
For more reading:
http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/11/28/having-issues-with-your-glocal-social-merge-my-advice-dont/
Hey There,
You know ... this is a really interesting topic and not actually one I have a solid answer for. If we were talking about website URLs on your own site, I'd definitely be cheering for any refinements you want to make to improve UX/SEO. But with local listing URLs, honestly, the URLs are frequently so ugly, I haven't paid a ton of attention to them, nor can I recall seeing anything written about this. I mean, look at this Superpage URL for a Whole Foods Market in California:
superpages.com/bp/Sacramento-CA/Whole-Foods-Market-L0503237111.htm
It's not exactly beautiful, is it? Other directories do a much better job, but it's just never been something I've paid a ton of attention to.
What would be the goal you'd have in mind with changing your present URLs? Do you think it would make them more recognizable, shareable, friendly in some way? Curious about this. I think it was in 2013 that Google rolled out custom URLs, which I've never really heard a ton about since then (possibly because Google has recently made it nearly impossible to get to Google+ Local pages at this point!).
At any rate, this is an interesting and worthy topic and I hope more members of the community will contribute their thoughts as to whether having beautiful local listing URLs matters, and if so, how?
Hi Blair,
Funny, I recalled this question, too, but didn't realize it was yours 
I wish we could get an 'official word' from Google on this, because it's something the guidelines hint around but don't speak to directly. Have you ever posted this question in the Google And Your Business Forum, just to see if you get any feedback from the TCs there? Maybe even from a staffer? What's really important, I think, is the distinction between what Google's guidelines state about rental properties, etc., and the fact that a main office is being located on the property for several years. I mean, if it were a watch repair store that opened for several years and then closed, no one would fault them for having a G+ Local page, right? So, I think there is grey area here. You've been told by a Google rep not to do this, but I am truly curious as to the reasoning behind that individual's advice, and whether they could have been misinterpreting the guidelines.
Blair, as this is a business model you deal with constantly, I'd suggest trying again to get feedback from a Google staffer on this, maybe via their forum. If that doesn't work, you might try contacting a TC, like Linda Buquet or Mike Blumenthal to see if they would consider writing about your topic ... because there just isn't a clear guideline for this, in my opinion, given the exact details of the business model.
Hi Clicksjim,
This is an 'it depends' answer. Basically, yes, if you're creating a brand new listing, you still create it via Places, but in regards to what happens with + and + Local, that's more complex.
Here's Google's own explanation of this topic:
http://support.google.com/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2623007
And here is a really good FAQ:
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/business/oRvAQC_IakA/vsfNhuMzURYJ
In reading that last post, do note that it was written before the whole merging thing happened, so merging is available to some businesses now, but not recommended for all. Read:
and
http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/11/28/having-issues-with-your-glocal-social-merge-my-advice-dont/
and
Hope you find these helpful!
Hey there ... check out Whitespark's list of acceptable abbreviations: https://www.whitespark.ca/acceptable-google-maps-nap-abbreviations-and-variations
I think it will help with your question.
Hi Wesley,
If, at the bottom of the local pack results, you click on the link that says 'Maps Results for Plumber' and this will take you to Google Maps where you can see more of the plumbers they have indexed by clicking on the page links at the bottom of the left hand column of results within Google Maps. Will this show you every single plumber in San Francisco? No, but it will typically show you more of them. Setting my location to San Francisco and following the above steps, Google states that they have 4000+ entries for this query in Maps. At any rate, it should be quite a few.
Hi Nexxtep,
There are several things to consider here. You mention:
Google+/Local/Places/whatever-the-heck-you-call-it-these-days page
After visiting your website, I'm trying to ascertain whether your business is actually local or virtual. Do you serve clients face-to-face at your location or theirs? If not, your business is virtual and not appropriate for inclusion in Google's local products.
What also needs to be considered is the fact that Google has not displayed true local results for website design and SEO firms since 2010. You offer IT services, I see, and I don't know whether Google would lump you in with this other group of unsupported industries, but it's something to consider.
In sum, if your business doesn't meet Google's definition of local, then a Google+ Local page is not right for you. You can, however, set up a Google+ Business page, for which you don't need to local (you could be national, like a brand, etc.).
If you'd like to provide further information to clarify your business model or question, please do so.
Hey There,
If memory serves, Google switched to using Most Helpful as the default setting some years ago when they partnered with Zagat. Prior to that, it had been ordered in terms of recency. I am not positive about this, but I believe 'Most Helpful' is determined via an algo that may include a combination of the authority of the reviewer + recency + review language and other factors. In your case, there is some reason that the algo thinks it is helpful for people to see those negative reviews - and I can totally see how much of a pain this is, given that the rest of your reviews are largely positive and you even have more recent, positive reviews.
I'd definitely take a look at the review profiles of the 2 people who left the negative reviews. If they've left lots of other reviews, their authority could be playing a role in this. If the reviews are, indeed, libelous, this post may help you in reporting:
http://www.localsearchforum.com/local-reviews/3931-how-remove-slanderous-google-reviews.html
Sorry not to have more definite information about this, but it's one of those algo-related things that likely puzzles many business owners and about which Google is not very forthcoming.
Hi Gavo,
Just want to be sure that in addition to changing your address on your Google listing, you've also been cleaning up any other citations that reference the old address. I'm asking this because it's so important to understand that Google also draws their information from third party sources, beyond simply relying on what the business owner says in his dashboard. Yes, it can take some time to see the change. If you don't see the change within 10 days, you may need to take further steps.
Hi Nexxtep,
So it does sound like your business has a real local component. The trick will be to convince Google of that
What keywords are you trying to rank for? I looked up 'it services valdosta, ga' and am not seeing it bring up any true local results at all. So this may be one of those industries for which Google just isn't going to show the pack of local results at all, no matter what you do, meaning that your efforts will need to be largely organic.
Oops! Looks like there's a typo in your thread title. I'm positive you meant customers 'can't' leave reviews
Please pop over to this thread, where you'll find some good links on this topic: