Hi Paul,

Sometimes, you will get an automated response before action takes place. However, if a month has gone by, I would go the Google And Your Business Forum and report the entire issue, including your report to the troubleshooter. See if a TC will take interest in your plight and escalate for you.

Hi Paul,

I'm not sure what steps you've taken to report the issue. I would go about reporting this by using the form accessed via the red Contact Us button on this page:

https://support.google.com/places/

Go through the wizard and report that the hours are incorrect.

I, too, am curious about the source of the bad data. In cases like this, we have to assume it is coming from somewhere, because Google doesn't just make things up. Some possibilities to consider:

1. I see your company has more than one location. Could it be that one of these locations has the 8:30 - 1:00 hours and Google is confusing their data with yours?

2. Could you have a duplicate, old Google Place page with the wrong hours on it?

3. Could there be a third party citation you've missed out there with the wrong hours on it.

4. The numbers almost look like a split hour day (e.g. open 8:30 AM - 1 PM, closed for lunch 1 PM - 2 PM, open 2 PM - 6 PM). I wonder if there could be some reason that a split day was listed and Google is only showing the first half of the split day? Just a random guess.

At any rate, please explain exactly what you've done to report the issue so far. I'll be happy to come back to read your further details about this. It's an interesting case, and I can imagine a very frustrating one for your business that needs to be resolved.

Gbkevin - one other thing I wanted to ask about. Where is the business located, and are you providing the real name of the law practice? When I searched for the business name you used, I found zero record of it in Google, so I'm kind of surmising that this may not be the actual business name. Please let me know if this is so, and also, the country in which the business is located.

Hi Dana,

Thanks for the list of ampersand brands! Fun.

The thing about this that is odd to me, from a local perspective, is that I know Google can surface a onebox/knowledge graph for law firms with both the ampersand and non-ampersand versions of their names. I've seen it. This may all boil down to authority or a lack thereof. Interesting.

Hi GBKevin,

Wow - I find your question extremely interesting. Common wisdom has it that Google understands that '&' and 'and' are equivalents in Local, but that it's a wise idea to stick to one version or the other in your citation building. Your client's scenario appears to indicate that Google is differentiating between the ampersand and the '&', and that is fascinating. So, basically, it appears that Google is only considering the business as being onebox/knowledge graph-worthy if you are searching for the exact name version that you've provided in your citations, website, etc. (Rosenberg & Dalgren). I must tell you that this is the first instance I have a ever encountered of this issue and don't have ready advice to give because of that.

It would be interesting to test whether editing all citations would reverse the situation - in other words, that the client would get a onebox/knowledge graph display for the 'and' version and lose it for the ampersand version. That could be the outcome, but I can't be sure. If Google is being that sensitive about an ampersand, some questions that come to my mind relate to whether the change to 'and' would require re-verification of the Google+ Local listing (name changes often do) and whether the client would temporarily lose rankings or reviews if you made these changes. Again, I'm not sure about this, because I've just not seen it come up before.

I've done some searching in the Google and Your Business Forum to see if I can find any reports of scenarios like yours and am coming up empty-handed. I'm going to ask around a bit in the Local SEO community to see if anyone I know has encountered a similar issue. Sorry not to have clear advice on this, but there's always something new to learn.

Finally, it's perfectly fine to use designations like LLC, PC, etc., if these are part of your legal business name. Google is cool with this. What they don't like is if a business name as too many capital letters in it (i.e. BEST PLUMBER).

If I do get a response from any of my colleagues, I'll return to this thread. If not, I'd recommend you consider posting about this in the Google and Your Business Forum to see if you get any nibbles.

Also a good question!

Here's the thing - as you know, Google has recently cracked down on EMDs (exact match domains) pretty heavily in their organic SERPs. Most problems surrounding this related to thin content sites that were getting by largely on the fact that they had keywords in their domain names. In other words, a poor quality site might have ranked well for 'frozen fruit juice', just because the domain name was frozenfruitjuice.com. This was a rather lame situation and the EMD action on Google's part was aimed at cleaning some of this stuff out of the SERPs.

However, it has been noted by several Local SEOs that the EMD penalty didn't seem to strike as hard in the local arena. There is still some thought that having the domain name berkeleychiropactor.com might be helping a site to rank for the search 'berkeley chiropractor'. Because of this, some Local SEOs are still recommending that EMDs be considered, provided that the site being built on the domain is strong - not weak.

My personal opinion is that this isn't a great idea. The writing is on the wall that Google isn't thrilled with EMDs. For local businesses, I like to look at this from a branding perspective and a human perspective. If you are Green Tree Dental, I'd rather see you have greentreedental.com as your domain name. It is true to your brand and instantly recognizable by human visitors. Further, you will have the confidence that it should stand the test of time, in terms of any further penalties Google might choose to roll out. Because of this, I really do prefer going with a domain name that is as close to the business name as possible. I just think it's more natural, and I believe that Google is very into natural these days.