BrightLocal

[jmshap]

I'm just curious if anyone else has had terrible experiences with BrightLocal recently. I am so disappointed and will never use them again. I upgraded my account for the rank tracking software. However, most of the locations we manage would show any keyword volume for the location. When I contact their support they told me that they did not support data from that city. It was around 80% of the cities so it's completely useless. Today, one of my employees told me that we ran out of credits for aggregator listings. Last week we had over 150 and we submitted 3 campaigns last week. That's 90 credits. WHen I contacted support and asked for a statement of how I used my credits they told me that they don't do that. I also had some questions for reputation manager and the customer service representative only asnwered the first question I asked. Ignored the rest of my email. I am so disappointed with the software and their service. Has anyone else had any experiences like this?

 

[StephanieNewton]

Thanks, @whitespark! Hopefully that answers your question @mandeepb but feel free to pop me a message if you have any more BrightLocal questions. You can also contact someone from our Customer Success team to set up a chat, here.

 

[Mark Mitchell]

I've had an SEO Pro plan for going on 10 years with Brightlocal and they have consistently provided a fantastic product and I've always received top-notch support on the limited occasions that I wasn't able to figure something out on my own.

 

[whitespark]

Hey @whitespark

Thanks a lot for the link, I just enjoyed watching it and cleared my doubts. Just one more question, where
could I get UULE for Melbourne, Australia location?

I did check it in another browser where I had never checked rankings, it is now accurate as Bright Local shows. Found the keywords on #7.

Confirmed from one of my colleagues who lives in another part of the city, she confirmed that it is located at #8.

Thanks again

Hi @mandeepb,

You could use this tool to generate a UULE for Melbourne, Australia:

UULE Generator for Google

The UULE region parameter (&uule=) of the Google search engine allows you to see the actual search results by region, which corresponds to geolocation when you are directly located in an arbitrary region (in other words, it is possible to get search results for your region in your browser...

site-analyzer.pro

But, even with the UULE, I caution you to not expect to see the exact same results as what your ranking reports show. As I mentioned in the video, other factors can come into play like:

1. Time (rankings are changing all the time)
2. IP Address
3. Browser signature

You'll probably get to a closer approximation of what the tool reports, though.

Hope this helps.

 

[johnlavapie_SEO]

Hi Mandeep,

There are several ways to change/mask your location. Here are some that I know:

1. UULE - Darren pretty much explained this. Found this site to get UULE: UULE Generator for Google​

Here's Melbourne's - w+CAIQICIUbWVsYm91cm5lLCBhdXN0cmFsaWE

This sets your location to the city/town.

2. Trick Google... - Trick Google in to thinking you are searching from any location​

Here's an easier version of UULE

If you are like me who wants to target blocks rather than a big city, I would explore the next options below.

3. Chrome Dev - How to Manually Set Your Location in Google Chrome​

This can point your location to a specific Latitude and Longitude which I personally prefer. But this is very time-consuming especially if you want to track more than 1 location.

At the same time - you need to probably make a list of GPS coordinates for each location you want to track.

4. GS Location - GS Location Changer for Chrome & Firefox​

​

I got this from @JoyHawkins from this post: SERP checker using geo-cordinates​

My personal favourite however is...

5. Manual Geolocation Chrome Extension - Manual Geolocation​

You need a Google Map API key to do this. And took me a lot of trial and error to set it up. Most technical of the bunch.

BUT once it is set up - it is a real time saver. You can change your location within 5 seconds. I set the location by searching it in the mini-map, double-clicking to drop the pin and set the accuracy (which I only set once for the entirety I used it). Open incognito mode, and search for a local search keyword. Rinse and Repeat.


Definitely up to your goal, time, and how patient you are at setting them up initially or for each use.

 

[mandeepb]

Hi Mandeep,

There are several ways to change/mask your location. Here are some that I know:

1. UULE - Darren pretty much explained this. Found this site to get UULE: UULE Generator for Google​

Here's Melbourne's - w+CAIQICIUbWVsYm91cm5lLCBhdXN0cmFsaWE

This sets your location to the city/town.

2. Trick Google... - Trick Google in to thinking you are searching from any location​

Here's an easier version of UULE

If you are like me who wants to target blocks rather than a big city, I would explore the next options below.

3. Chrome Dev - How to Manually Set Your Location in Google Chrome​

This can point your location to a specific Latitude and Longitude which I personally prefer. But this is very time-consuming especially if you want to track more than 1 location.

At the same time - you need to probably make a list of GPS coordinates for each location you want to track.

4. GS Location - GS Location Changer for Chrome & Firefox​

​

I got this from @JoyHawkins from this post: SERP checker using geo-cordinates​

My personal favourite however is...

5. Manual Geolocation Chrome Extension - Manual Geolocation​

You need a Google Map API key to do this. And took me a lot of trial and error to set it up. Most technical of the bunch.

BUT once it is set up - it is a real time saver. You can change your location within 5 seconds. I set the location by searching it in the mini-map, double-clicking to drop the pin and set the accuracy (which I only set once for the entirety I used it). Open incognito mode, and search for a local search keyword. Rinse and Repeat.


Definitely up to your goal, time, and how patient you are at setting them up initially or for each use.

Hi @mandeepb,

You could use this tool to generate a UULE for Melbourne, Australia:

UULE Generator for Google

The UULE region parameter (&uule=) of the Google search engine allows you to see the actual search results by region, which corresponds to geolocation when you are directly located in an arbitrary region (in other words, it is possible to get search results for your region in your browser...

site-analyzer.pro

But, even with the UULE, I caution you to not expect to see the exact same results as what your ranking reports show. As I mentioned in the video, other factors can come into play like:

1. Time (rankings are changing all the time)
2. IP Address
3. Browser signature

You'll probably get to a closer approximation of what the tool reports, though.

Hope this helps.

@whitespark @raellovepie

You are awesome

Thanks again for your reply.

 

[jmshap]

Hello all. I need to provide a quick update on my experience with BrightLocal. I'm done. Once a month since this original post I have had some type of issue. This weekends was the last straw. A customer that I help with their GMB management got a bad review. They are 100% set up properly in Bright Local for reputation management. I did not get a notification. I just so happen to see the review and let the customer know right away. I have had ranking issues. I have had errors in reports. I have not seen a review notification in weeks, now that I think about it. Problem after problem. Sure, customer service tries their best when I report an issue but I don't have the time to constantly wait around for them to fix issues when I a being charged for software that is supposed to work. I'm moving on. I hope everyone else has a better experience with them than I have. Good luck.

 

[VickyC500]

Hello all. I need to provide a quick update on my experience with BrightLocal. I'm done. Once a month since this original post I have had some type of issue. This weekends was the last straw. A customer that I help with their GMB management got a bad review. They are 100% set up properly in Bright Local for reputation management. I did not get a notification. I just so happen to see the review and let the customer know right away. I have had ranking issues. I have had errors in reports. I have not seen a review notification in weeks, now that I think about it. Problem after problem. Sure, customer service tries their best when I report an issue but I don't have the time to constantly wait around for them to fix issues when I a being charged for software that is supposed to work. I'm moving on. I hope everyone else has a better experience with them than I have. Good luck.

Hi jmshap

I am really disappointed to see you are still experiencing issues and having this frustration.

We never want this for our customers and my team work really hard to fully service and support all of our customers, so I am very sorry to see this hasn't been your experience to date.

I have contacted you directly also today, so we can discuss in more detail some of the comments raised in your post here.

With regards to the notification of the negative review, my colleague did respond to your ticket about this (yesterday June 1st), and we are just waiting to hear back from you.

If the review came from Google, then you would have been notified immediately as your GMB has been correctly connected to the report. Please just reply to my email if it is a Google review and I will investigate further.

However, if it came in from the other review sites, then as you have chosen this option in your report settings, the notification will be sent to you on the scheduled date of running the report, which is 2nd of June 2021.

So you should have received this notification today.

We certainly do not want to lose you as a customer so I sincerely hope I can resolve this for you, and so I look forward to hearing back from you, on the direct email I have sent to you today.

Thank you
Vicky
Head of Customer Success
BrightLocal

 

[jmshap]

Hi Vicky,

Yes, it was from Google and we did not receive any notifications at all. It was set to send to two different email addresses and neither receive a notification.

Also, I did receive a ticket reply, and I replied, but I did not receive anything from you.

I'm not really sure what else you guys can do at this point. There are just too many bugs. I can't run a business like this when at least once a month I'm waiting for chat replies or ticket replies because of yet another issue. It just takes too much time away from my work.

 

[MeganR]

Hi,
This thread hasn't been updated in a while. I wonder if anyone else has a new, preferred manual geolocation chrome extension. Suggestions welcome as the ones I previously used are no longer available in the chrome store, or are too cumbersome. Thank you.