In late September there was an active post in the forum that seemed to coalesce a number of complaints around the issue and posters presented a large number of examples of the OneBox showing inappropriately that Google could examine. On September 30th, Google chimed in and at acknowledged the issue. Numerous examples of the problem continued to surface throughout October.

Well it seems that during the hubbub yesterday about phone numbers, Google seems to have rolled out a tweak that has fixed many of the reported problems. The 3 & Lucky 7 Packs are now showing in place of many of the Authoritative OneBoxes on the general searches given as examples.

I tested 22 of the example searches from the forum post and 15 of those were now presenting the 7-Pack, the 3-pack or no Universal Local Result instead of the OneBox. Of the 7 others that weren’t, 4 were clearly spam and 3 were results that probably should have a Lucky 7 Pack presented. However in those 3 that should be presenting broad results, there is a certain ambiguity in the search due to the similarity between the business name and the search phrase.

Here are several examples from the post of listings still returning the OneBox on what are arguably general searches.

Not Spam:

Pittsburgh Bartending School. (Note that Pittsburgh Bartending Schools though is now returning a 3 Pack.)

Clearly Spammy Business Title:

German Classes Los Angeles

Are your searches that were returning inappropriate OneBoxes now generating the 3 or 7 Pack? Is the problem solved?

This recent post in the Google Maps forums raises all sorts of questions. It falls into the category of “no wonder they are getting a divorce”:

Date: October 31, 2009 4:17:25 PM EDT
Subject: I have an ex – wife who is now a business competitor. How can I prevent her from posting fictitious bad reviews
Author: Dream Parties

When a customer googles my company, all reviews are positive, 5 stars. But my ex-wife is now in the same business and has threatened to publish fictitious bad reviews. How can I block all reviews or tell the world that her review is a fraud.

Question from Dream Parties in Maps – How Do I?

So one has to ask a few questions here, no?
- What was the husband at Dream Parties really doing?
- Will ownership of an LBC account someday become a disputed asset in the divorce court? Will we see an LBC custody case?
- What else does she know?
- And who really did write those reviews in the first place?

*********

From the arena of News of the Weird (Corporate version) in the category of “Tim Armstrong has his work cut out for him at AOL”: AOL’s Patch Dumps Google Maps, But Not For MapQuest

After a Spring-time acquisition, AOL’s local news subsidiary Patch finally dumped Google Maps from its homepages today.

But instead of Mapquest, Patch pages feature Open Street Maps.

Can someone explain to me their thinking? Is this what is known as corporate synergies?

The poor man’s virtual office, the PO Box, has been singled out in the new Business Listing Guidelines as they relate to your business address:

• Do not create listings at locations where the business does not physically exist.
• PO Boxes do not count as physical locations.(italics mine)
• Do not create more than one listing for each business location, either in a single account or multiple accounts.
• Businesses that operate in a service area as opposed to a single location should not create a listing for every city they service. Service area businesses should create one listing for the central office of the business only.

Poster Meleighsmith noted yesterday:

It’s too bad for people who conduct business from a home office that P.O. Boxes can not be used as addresses (I have a client that is a Therapist who does this, and doesn’t want her physical address quite so prominently visible like that). For accuracy’s sake, I think it would be better to use a true P.O. Box rather than a box at a “UPS Store” – at least with a P.O. Box you’re not scamming potential customers.

Miriam Ellis made a similar comment about PO Boxes:

This is a pain in the neck. Google has got to figure out a solution for local businesses with private addresses…remember, 50% of SMBs are run from home.

But is it Google’s intention to totally eliminate their use? I think not. In the case that Meleigh mentions and in the case of service businesses, I believe that the use of PO Box is still considered legitimate as long as you only use it instead of your actual physical address and not as a way to create additional, virtual locations. This paragraph from the recently updated Local Business Center User Guide clarifies the point somewhat:

Every business listing must have a mailing address.
Usually this is the physical address of your business, but certain businesses may wish to use a PO Box. For example, if you wish to keep the physical location of your business private, or if your business provides a service at various locations (like a cleaning service).

Update 3:30 11/05/09: Glenn Younger of Grah Safe & Lock, forwarded me this piece from the RiverFrontTimes that details the scam and the charges. It’s a great read. A snippet:

The complaint alleges that telephone dispatchers for Dependable Locks were instructed by managers to quote a price of $54 for a car lockout, while the responding technician was instructed by managers to charge up to $179 once services had been provided.

The telephone dispatchers were instructed to misrepresent or understate the possibility of additional charges above the price quoted. The market rate for a standard car lockout is typically about $60. The locksmiths were instructed to charge significantly more than the price quoted, and significantly more than usual market rates. Technicians use techniques such as accusing the consumer who objects to the overcharge of “theft of services,” threatening to call the police, withholding the customer’s keys or driver’s license, or following the customer to an ATM machine to ensure payment.

The locksmith technicians allegedly are allowed to split the profits of the fraudulently procured locksmith services with the company, typically 50/50 or 60/40, and that the technicians are required to remit the company’s share of the proceeds by regularly purchasing and shipping money orders to the Dependable Locks location in Clearwater.

The affidavit states that Eliyahu Barhanun, David Peer and Moshe Aharoni conspired with the managers of Dependable Locks to implement a scheme to procure overcharges for locksmith services.

On November 4th, US Postal Inspectors stormed Dependable Locksmith’s headquarters in Clearwater, Fl. Dependable has been one of the companies frequently mentioned as it related to the national locksmith scams. The raid was coordinated with authorities in Missouri and apparently more arrests are to made. This is the same company that the Missouri Attorney General charged with “deceiving and overcharging customers in Kansas City” in April of this year. Their BBB report includes an F Rating and  numerous complaints and has more the look of a rap sheet than a business review.

Things seem to be looking up in the Locksmith industry and legitimate locksmiths must, for the first time in several years, be seeing a glimmer of hope. It appears that Google is also making progress in their efforts to control and minimize the damage that scammers in this industry have wrought. More on that in a later post.

The local world is buzzing this morning as it appears that Google has removed or perhaps lost the phone numbers from the Local Universal Results. Matt McGee noticed them missing from the Lucky-7 Pack and SEO Book noticed them gone from the Authoritative OneBox. There are also reports of fewer OneBoxes showing in results.

Of interest is that while they are gone from Local Universal results they remain in the Local Listing Ads:

Did Google misplace phone numbers for every business in the world? Are they planning on rolling out a call tracking system? Or were they just “neatening” up the display along the lines of other recent changes to better display ads? Earlpearl noted in an email: “My first reaction is that removing phone numbers rolls people into more clicks, less phone calls. Possibly a way to hopefully generate more click throughs. Possibly an experiment. Google voice is too new, too experimental to get a big value out of testing that yet, IMHO.”

What do you think is going on?

I have noted in italics those sections which are completely new.

Here are the new Guidelines:

Business Listing Quality Guidelines

Local Business Center Guidelines

Business Listings in Local Business Center must have correct information about physical, local businesses, as they appear in the real world. Google reserves the right to suspend access to Local Business Center or to other Google Services to individuals or businesses violating these guidelines.

Ownership

• Only business owners or authorized representatives may claim their business listings on Google Maps.

Business Name

• The business name on Google Maps must be your full legal business name.
• Do not attempt to manipulate search results by adding extraneous keywords or a description of your business into the business name.
• Do not include phone numbers or URLs in the business name.

Physical Location

• Do not create listings at locations where the business does not physically exist.
• PO Boxes do not count as physical locations.
• Do not create more than one listing for each business location, either in a single account or multiple accounts.
• Businesses that operate in a service area as opposed to a single location should not create a listing for every city they service. Service area businesses should create one listing for the central office of the business only.
• Businesses with special services, such as law firms and doctors, should not create multiple listings to cover all of their specialties.
• The precise address for the business must be provided in place of broad city names or cross-streets.
• A property for rent is not considered a place of business. Please create one listing for the central office that processes the rentals.

URL & Phone

• Provide a phone number that connects to your individual business location as directly as possible. For example, you should provide an individual location phone number in place of a call center.
• Provide one URL that best identifies your individual business location.
• Do not provide phone numbers or URLs that redirect or ‘refer’ users to other landing pages or phone numbers other than those of the actual business.

Custom Attributes & Description

• Use the description and custom attribute fields to include additional information about your listing. This type of content should never appear in your business’s title, address or category fields.
• Please see this page of the LBC User Guide for examples of acceptable custom attributes.

Best Practices

• Use a shared, business email account, if multiple users will be updating your business listing.
• If possible, use an email account with a domain that matches your business URL. For example, if your business website is www.giraffetoys.com, a matching email address would be you@giraffetoys.com.

Contact Us

• Report Spam on Maps.
• Request Reinclusion if your Local Business Center account has been suspended.
• Request Verification for your bulk upload.
• Post in our Help Forum.

For more information about the Local Business Center, please visit the Local Business Center user guide.

They recently added the “See your listing” link to the Local Business Center so that a business could actually know if their business was in Maps or not. (Tip to Google: Add the link to the Dashboard as well as the list view so that a business with a single listing can find the link). Most significantly, with Google replacing TeleAtlas data with their own, they have added a Report a Problem link visibly in Maps and have committed to both feedback and timeliness when they receive a report.

On October 30th I reported, using the new Google Maps Report a Problem link, a geocoding error that placed the office building in which I was located some 3000 feet north of its actual location. At the time I received a note that I would recieve feedback from Google and if a problem was determined to be actual, resolution within 30 days.

Well this morning I received this email:

Hi Mike,

Your Google Maps problem report has been reviewed, and you were right! We’ll update the map within a month and email you when you can see the change.

Report history
Problem ID: D542-1B0A-26B9-55C5

Your report: You have 201 N Union St, Olean NY located roughly 3000 feet to the north of its actual location at the corner of Laurens and North Union St

–
Thanks for your help,
The Google Maps team

Obviously, misplacing an office building with so many offices is a problem. If Google can’t find the building, they can’t give accurate directions. If they can’t give accurate directions they will not sell many Local Listing Ads. It is a key competency that needs to be in place if Google is to ever monetize Maps effectively. That being said, it was still nice to know that Google has in fact assigned a case number, is tracking down the problem and will provide a solution in the timeframe previously committed to. It was also refreshing that I didn’t need to go to Maps to double check…the problem is not yet solved but it will be.

The simple act of sending out an email ala Yahoo, even if automated, that details to the customer what has happened and when the issue will be resolved is a definite step in the right direction. The basis of customer service is setting client expectations when a problem occurs and then exceeding them. Google Maps has never really pretended to offer such a thing. Interesting technology yes, reputation management yes, but, in the very recent past using the words customer service and Google Maps in the same sentence could be labeled as one of the great oxymorons of modern American corporate history.

Maybe, just maybe that is beginning to change? Certainly automation can never substitute for real customer service that will on occasion require human to human interaction but if Google continues on this path they might just be moving in the right direction. A trend? Not yet but here’s hoping.

I think have identified a cause of some verifiably missing listings that seems to occur rarely. It appears that if Google is completely unable to geocode the address of the business, the listing has no place to appear on the Map and will not be shown. In some situations when this happens, Google will show the business listing as a circle but in other instances like the one below, the listing will disappear completely even when the link in the LBC is followed.

Here is the screen shot from the LBC and the view upon clicking the link to find the listing in Maps:

—-

When you search for the address of the business in Maps (11110-C. S 82nd Pl E Bixby OK 74008) you are presented with this screen:

—-

This is most likely due to the recent change away from using TeleAtlas mapping data. It is possible that it was also occurring using the old geodata but relatively unsophisticated users were unable to document it properly in the forums.

The recent change in base geodata has led to two situations that can lead to a listing dropping off the map. One is the rare, situation mentioned above where a listing completely disappears.

Another, which appears to be more common, is where Google is now geocoding the location incorrectly, placing it on the wrong side of town, even if it was correctly geocoded prior to the change.

See this example of a business located in the same office building as mine (this also happened to my listing). There are now two listings, one being approximately one mile north of the actual listing, despite both having the same address.

This can result in bad driving directions for your customers. It can also result in a duplicate of your record showing up in Maps (”under clustering”) thus diluting your record’s strength and rank. For this client it meant that on one of their key searches, their local listing did not show.

This makes it imperative that even businesses that have previously claimed their listings in Maps, go back into the LBC & Maps and double check their record.

Here are some things to look for/at:

1)Using the Map in the LBC, be that your record is located where it is supposed to be. Relocate within the LBC map as necessary.
2)Use the link to “See the listing in Google Maps” and make sure that the listing is properly geo coded AND showing up in Maps with a Pin.
3)If there is an error in the geocoding, report this to Google via the Report an Error feature. Google is stating that they will repair these problems in less than 30 days.
4)And finally do a search on your “business name + locale” in Maps to be sure that any geocoding errors have not created duplicate listings. If they have, claim and merge the second listing.

In the new era of algo generated listings, there are number of factors that can lead to a listing loosing its standing. The time of giving your listing to the YP saleman are gone and any business show now check on their listings in both the LBC, Maps and elsewhere on the internet on a regular basis. I would recommend once per month for most businesses and as often as weekly or daily if your Maps listing constitutes your lifeline.