Anyone seeing changes to URLS, categories, or descriptions reverting out of nowhere?

[sixthcitysarah]

Hi everyone,

So we recently opened up a new location and got it verified a little less than a month ago. (AKA still painlessly waiting to see results in our keyword positions.)

Before it was verified, I completed the profile as much as I could so when we got our postcard it would be set to go live. And after that, I was diligent to expand upon what I already set (added UTM parameters to our URL,s added more categories, and expanded our description.)

However, I have been noticing time to time that things such as our categories, URLs, and descriptions will out of nowhere change back to what I originally set them as pre-verification. No notification or "pending edit" sort of thing anywhere on the profile.

Anyone else noticing this? I am thinking it must be a bug in their system rather than someone making a "suggest an edit" to our profile.

Thanks!

 

[KimW]

Hi sixthcitysarah,

YES! Its been so frustrating! No rhyme or reason for why it is happening. I certainly haven't made these incorrect edits to my client's listings. And, it seems unlikely that a user or competitor is sabotaging info.

I contact GMB live chat in the early am hours to fix. So far I have had success with this although its been time-consuming.

-Kim

 

[sixthcitysarah]

Hi sixthcitysarah,

YES! Its been so frustrating! No rhyme or reason for why it is happening. I certainly haven't made these incorrect edits to my client's listings. And, it seems unlikely that a user or competitor is sabotaging info.

I contact GMB live chat in the early am hours to fix. So far I have had success with this although its been time-consuming.

-Kim

So glad I am not the only one - I reached out to support and they needed evidence/screenshots but since I had already gone in and reupdated our stuff, I had nothing to show.

And then they just told me to not accept any edits we got via email for the listing... but we never got such emails in the first place.

But right, its nothing malicious or damaging to our listing but info just goes missing, it's just weird!! It has to be some bug on their end, it's like they saved an old backup of our listing and pushed it live.

Hopefully, it gets fixed soon it's just annoying more than anything.

 

[keyserholiday]

Grab screenshots of the listings per Google updating them. When you contact support ask for a case Id via email so you can email them the before and after images. Sadly, support doesn’t appear to want to do any work to help users. If you can’t get it resolved via support let me know. I can back channel it Google and highlight the failure of support yet again.

 

[sixthcitysarah]

Grab screenshots of the listings per Google updating them. When you contact support ask for a case Id via email so you can email them the before and after images. Sadly, support doesn’t appear to want to do any work to help users. If you can’t get it resolved via support let me know. I can back channel it Google and highlight the failure of support yet again.

Thanks for the reply! Should I send screenshots of things I have already re-updated?

I do have a case ID [9-9405000029030] that I was going to reply to if things get wonky again but its been a few days since I made the changes and nothing has reverted again thankfully.

 

[keyserholiday]

Just make sure you have screenshots for the future. Since you have a case id, you can reply to that email if it happens again. If they are unable to assist you or ghost you, let me know. I had an issue where they A. Did want to listen to me and B. Completely ghosted me. I went around them to A. Get the issue fixed and B. Highlight the break median with support. Honestly, they have gotten lazier I’ve the past year.

 

[sixthcitysarah]

Just make sure you have screenshots for the future. Since you have a case id, you can reply to that email if it happens again. If they are unable to assist you or ghost you, let me know. I had an issue where they A. Did want to listen to me and B. Completely ghosted me. I went around them to A. Get the issue fixed and B. Highlight the break median with support. Honestly, they have gotten lazier I’ve the past year.

Local became so important in 2019 I am sure they got hit with a wave of support inquiries they couldn't handle/did not expect. They have been nice in replying and such but basically, they aren't accepting the fact that we/someone else didn't make the changes and that it really, really looks like some bug in their system. I will definitely reach out to them/post back on this thread if I see it happen again. Crossing my fingers that it doesn't though!

Thanks for the help!

 

[sixthcitysarah]

Just make sure you have screenshots for the future. Since you have a case id, you can reply to that email if it happens again. If they are unable to assist you or ghost you, let me know. I had an issue where they A. Did want to listen to me and B. Completely ghosted me. I went around them to A. Get the issue fixed and B. Highlight the break median with support. Honestly, they have gotten lazier I’ve the past year.

Sad news - it actually happened again today. I just replied to my support thread (ironically today they emailed saying it looks like I have no issue - ha.)

I took screenshots and let them know what happened. This time it was just our additional categories and description that reverted, the URL seemed to stay in place.

 

[sixthcitysarah]

Hi sixthcitysarah,

YES! Its been so frustrating! No rhyme or reason for why it is happening. I certainly haven't made these incorrect edits to my client's listings. And, it seems unlikely that a user or competitor is sabotaging info.

I contact GMB live chat in the early am hours to fix. So far I have had success with this although its been time-consuming.

-Kim

Kim - I ended up getting this resolved. I would check your 3rd party apps that are connected to the listing (Sign in - Google Accounts). It turns out the listing was connected to a site we were using for citations was auto-populating the listing with the information we had in there.

 

[Sarah FBM]

This has happened to me too, three brand new listings that hadn't even been verified yet - when I went back to enter the codes, it has the description and URL striked out. I corrected it, and it immediately went back to being striked out again. Contacted GMB and got the generic "technical issue" with no time-frame for fixing it.

 

[sixthcitysarah]

This has happened to me too, three brand new listings that hadn't even been verified yet - when I went back to enter the codes, it has the description and URL striked out. I corrected it, and it immediately went back to being striked out again. Contacted GMB and got the generic "technical issue" with no time-frame for fixing it.

Interestingly, I was definitely never told that... Are you by chance using any 3rd party apps/sites to manage citations of any kind? That is what it ended up being for me. You can go here to check out if you do: Sign in - Google Accounts

 

[Sarah FBM]

We don't use any 3rd party apps or anything. Just log in directly to GMB and do everything manually.

Interestingly, I was definitely never told that... Are you by chance using any 3rd party apps/sites to manage citations of any kind? That is what it ended up being for me. You can go here to check out if you do: Sign in - Google Accounts

 

[sixthcitysarah]

We don't use any 3rd party apps or anything. Just log in directly to GMB and do everything manually.

Ugh, wish that would have been the missing piece to solve it. Hopefully, they figure it out for you soon, I completely understand the frustration.

 

[keyserholiday]

Is there any way to you can share the information for the businesses? Were you able to verify the listings?

 

[UKSBD]

It effects rankings too

I had a demo listing set up in a particular category, changed the category years ago.

When I search for the *old category location* it still comes up in the 3 pack showing the old category, but when clicking on it the correct category shows.