Apple Maps Management

[Raph2805]

Hi All,

We are starting to manage more and more clients business listings for Apple maps. These businesses dont manage them themselves as they dont have an apple ID or apple hardware within their dealerships....yes they're car dealerships

My question is now we have over 100 dealership locations for 9 clients what is the best way to manage Apple Maps listings?

Personal Apple id (current set up)
Create a Apple ID purely for our business name
Create a Apple Business Manager Account

Anyone out there managing bulk apple listings? How do you it!?

Thanks in advance,

Raph

 

[Raph2805]

Hi, im not sure you read my question properly. Not once did i mention SEO benefits and trying to rank!

Im looking for the best solution to manage bulk Apple listings which allows us to scale, simple as that.
@Justin Mosebach would you be able to provide any information on this? Thanks in advance

 

[Justin Mosebach]

Hi @Raph2805, I don't know of a way to do it in bulk, but I would strongly recommend reaching out to Apple Maps support and see if there's an option to do so.

 

[Raph2805]

thanks @Justin Mosebach i'll look to do that.

How do you manage Apple listings currently? do you have an agency apple ID or use the clients apple ID which would mean getting login verification each time..?

 

[Justin Mosebach]

@Raph2805 We use the client's Apple ID. It's annoying, but once you set up the listing, there's no management needed from inside the dashboard (or at least there didn't use to be).

 

[Raph2805]

Thanks Justin, weve gone with setting up an agency Apple ID and having all clients listings within that. Lets see how it goes. Would like to think Apple will be making improvements to the connect dashboard at some point1

 

[creekmoremarketing]

I have a client with 50 locations. Our team has been editing the names of locations both from the business register, and suggest an edit on maps (both desktop and mobile). They show under review and then do not publish.

All of these locations are under 1 Apple ID and only used for this client. Any ideas why they keep reverting?

 

[Justin Mosebach]

@creekmoremarketing Have you tried submitting edits using different Apple IDs from different IPs?

 

[creekmoremarketing]

Thank you for the suggestion, I will try this from home instead of the office.

As my client expands they are purchasing other retail locations with a different name. Do you have any best practices for claiming all current listings / duplicates and making front/back end edits (from different ips)?

 

[Justin Mosebach]

@creekmoremarketing I'm not sure. If they're all part of the same chain or ownership, you *might* be able to ask Apple Maps support if there's a bulk option, but I've never personally used it (if that's even an option).

 

[creekmoremarketing]

@Justin Mosebach We tried using different IP addresses and apple Id's to make sure our edits push through but got the same results. Any other suggestions on how we can fix this issue?

 

[Justin Mosebach]

@creekmoremarketing I'd try contacting their support. I'd also check with Whitespark and BrightLocal to see if they can do it without needing to manually verify it.

Next, I'd consider if I even need to claim Apple Maps or if a free 3rd-party listing feeds Apple Maps.

If you absolutely need to claim Apple Maps in bulk and the above ideas don't work, I think some automated services (ex. Yext) feed Apple Maps directly.

 

[Jordan Kohler]

@creekmoremarketing I deal with very similar issues every day! Apple is a joy! We have over 150 locations and Apple Maps is constantly causing problems with incorrect information. For us, the main cause of this originated in Yelp. Apple gets most of its data from Yelp, so I'd double-check you have all the correct information on your Yelp page and that there are not any old Yelp pages for the locations floating around with incorrect info.

If you are constantly purchasing new locations as you expand, you are probably in the same boat as us. When we buy a new location Yelp marks the old page as permanently closed and starts a whole new page for you as the new owner. Apple gets that info like a month or two later sometimes. Then they remove the business from maps, change info, or mark the location as closed. (At least this has been the case for us I deal with this issue a few times a month) We then get dozens of complaints every month about ppl getting lost or calling the wrong phone numbers.

Our contacts at Yelp say this is normal and has always been their policy and every time I've inquired about this with Apple, they just continue to suggest to manually claim and update info on "Places On Maps" and wait for it to fix itself.

Not sure if it works for you or if you have already done it. Apple Maps is still very wonky and we have found even after doing everything possible and sending dozens of emails, and talking to anyone possible, that sometimes it just takes time for everything to be entirely accepted and updated. Especially if you just purchased a business and are changing a lot of the information.

But ya look into your Yelp pages. Let me know if you have questions, sounds like you have the same challenges as us with this.

Oh and no listing service has shown any results at all with Apple Maps. (At least with fixing incorrect information or duplicates.) We have tried most of them over the last 3 years trying to fix this issue. No luck. I'd love to be proven wrong though, it would save a ton of time! Maybe it just takes a long time.

 

[Raph2805]

@creekmoremarketing your timing is perfect, im literally in latter conversations with two companies who say their API's update Apple and Bing listings fixing incorrect information and removing duplicates aswell.
Have you used either Uberall or Synup?

We took the same route as you trying to tidy up listings manually that Apple said they get most of their data from (Yelp, Foursquare and Yell) in the UK

Major issue we have with Yelp is our clients all have automated telephone systems (press 1 for sales, 2 customer service etc) so it makes verifying any listing on Yelp and Yell impossible.

Because we are in the UK along with our clients, Yelp openly admitted that have no focus here and did not offer an solution for us to tidy up the listings despite me proving the info they hold is dreadfully out of date or incorrect.
Yell are just as bad, upgrade to a paid listing (long contract) they will let you tidy up the listings, have a free listing and none of updates are published.

Im starting to think there isn't a single solution out there that can update Bing, Apple, Yell, Foursquare , Yelp , reliably and consistently. The likes of Bright Local and Whitespark etc do nothing different to what you and I doing manually requesting edits. And my fear is the API solutions out there are not as reliable as their websites and sales pitches would have you believe.

Be interesting to see if you have used any API listing providers.

 

[Jordan Kohler]

Haven't used Uberall specifically but I have used several others that use the exact same software that they do. Same dashboard and everything. I could be wrong though. I don't know about Synup. Not familiar with it. I would love to see one of them work for Apple Maps but I think the problem IS Apple Maps, NOT the listing services.\

They all say that they SEND their data to Apple Maps but they don't specify whether or not Apple actually accepts that data and makes edits with it. With all the ones I have used this was the case. If you are in talks with one of them I would suggest asking them that directly if that's what you want it for. We wasted a lot of time with past listing services because we assumed it would work the way they say. But its not that simple. They can't control if the directories accept all their data sent, especially if there is no API.

So its not really any fault of theirs but more on Apple Maps for being so behind. But I would love to be wrong. Perhaps Apple may accept listings data to create a new business profile BUT for correcting bad information, or fixing any other errors, I don't have much faith. Yext, BrightLocal, Whitespark, MozLocal (a while ago), Soci Listings, never had a single effect on our Apple Maps profiles.

So for now its just manual managing for the big ones where most of our local traffic comes from. Yelp causes extra issues for Apple Maps while Apple Maps is still stuck in the past. I hope they improve on it sometime soon.