2 New Google Local Problems - Descriptions & Missing URL to Website

[Linda Buquet]

There have been a lot of reports of a couple issues I wanted to bring up. Could be bugs or could be something else.

DESCRIPTIONS on Google+ Local Page:

Lots of reports of description edits or new descriptions not going live. Some have reported waiting months.

We've reported to Google so they are aware. I don't know if this is a bug per se OR if descriptions are under manual scrutiny and they are delayed until reviewed OR if there is a problem with the back end pipeline that's affecthing this info getting through and going live. (Similar to the slow image update issue?)

Here are a couple posts from the Google forum:
Business Description Not Updating

Description hasnt come through after 2 months

MISSING URL - LINK TO WEB SITE:

The other thing I've seen several times lately is someone on the Google forum saying "help my listing disappeared". When I check I find the listing just live, BUT the URL to their site is missing. So I think when they say they "disappeared" they mean disappeared from the search results, not that the listing is gone.

I've discovered this in quite a few cases but don't think I actually replied to help anyone so I can't track down the posts.

A couple I've found that reported, the whole listing is now gone. So I'm almost wondering if this is a penalty, not a bug.

Colan, have you seen any of these? I can't find them. They were never reporting "my link is gone" they were usually reporting other problems but then when I would check the listing I would notice the missing link.

Just warning if you drop out of the pack suddenly, may want to check to be sure the link to site go missing.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

We have a newer client who was experiencing a similar issue. This client was working with another SEO company for his Google Places, so they removed him from dash and we had to re-claim.

We used an existing account that the client had so it was claimed into the old style dashboard.

Photos and business description were still not live after several weeks. After using phone support and being told to just wait, we waited another week or so and then used phone support again.

Their solution was to auto-upgrade our G+ Local page to get the description working and live on the page. First time I've seen a page in the old dashboard auto-upgraded.

Anyway, the interesting stuff is in the notes of my colleague that was working on this. I've bolded what I think is the important part and maybe the reason for these issues:


Talked to Google about his Google+ page not being uploaded, he informed me that since he still has the old dashboard that is what is preventing his page from uploading and that we will have to upgrade his page to the Google+ business page then merge them. He still has the old dashboard but to optimize his page I had to do it through his upgraded page and any changes will have to be through that page not his dashboard.