Crackdown on residential addresses for Service Area Businesses?

[Phil Rozek]

Why did you say C'mon Linda???

Because I dare say we're both pretty familiar with the rules

On your blog you said: "Then Holly Pedit emails me to say Google has put the kibosh on all her service-area clients."

That's what she said.

Based on what you said, I had no way of knowing if it was a single big chain of plumbers and all listings were suspended. Or if it was a couple unrelated indiv clients.

The latter: unrelated individual clients. Holly's clients, and mine.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Why did you say C'mon Linda???

Because I dare say we're both pretty familiar with the rules

I think we must be on a different wave length. I know you know the rules and nothing I said had anything to do with rules. I was trying to determine scope.

You said "all her clients" and I was just trying to get at how many Holly had...

Doe that mean she had a chain with 20 plumbing company locations? Or does that mean 3 unrelated clients like a plumber, a house cleaner and a dog walker.

 

[Holly Pedit]

One more question. If you search for the business by name and locale should not that businesses Google info show up in the upper right corner? - you know the header of the Plus page, hours, review button?

Because this not happening as well as what I mentioned above going thru the dashboard.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Linda

Yeah, I'm not sure how many clients Holly was referring to.

 

[Linda Buquet]

LOL I see the confusion now Phil. You thought I was asking you all those questions.

No post #16 was addressed to Holly.

Hi Holly. Welcome and thanks for posting!

Can you tell me more?

@Linda

Yeah, I'm not sure how many clients Holly was referring to.

Holly said in post 17 there were 3 clients.

Hey Holly, I'm just curious, what industries?

 

[Phil Rozek]

LOL I see the confusion now Phil. You thought I was asking you all those questions.

lol...sorry about that!

 

[Holly Pedit]

Linda-
Landscaping, Pest Control, Clock repair. The only one now having the issue is the Landscaping one.

 

[Linda Buquet]

OK thanks Holly. Hope that last one gets resolved.

 

[Phil Rozek]

Update:

It looks like Google accidentally sat on those 2 service-area listings I described.

Client #1 sent an email to Google support, begging and wearing his confusion on his sleeve. Support said they didn't know why the listing got suspended. Now he's back up.

Client #2 also had his listing un-suspended today. He hasn't yet told me the specifics of his back-and-forth with Google, though I suspect it's the same deal as with #1.

Moral of the story: just contact Places support, will ya

 

[nemtulea]

Had the same problem, they took listing down saying that i have duplicate pages with same phone number and same address!
And yes, i had a small business from my home and then i changed names of the business so now i had a second page with same address and phone number, and also had a 3rd home business , so all i had 3 pages, and they suspended all, and never sent any emails out, till i have contacted them, so i provide proof from the state and city as i was a legally residential business and the re-instate one of them. And they said that to get listed on page , you can do only 1 business per address, but how about if i have a online store with a different business that i already have can i list that in pages? they say no because is 1 listing per 1 residential or business address.

Thanks

 

[Linda Buquet]

but how about if i have a online store with a different business that i already have can i list that in pages? they say no because is 1 listing per 1 residential or business address.

Plus online-only businesses cannot have a G+ Local listing at all anyway.

 

[Ex Lurker]

I still see a lot of SABs with no storefronts and no hidden addresses. Is Google still cracking down on this?
The ones who are not staffed during business hours.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yes they are still but not quite as bad as it initially was.

But all along it's been a matter of whether or not you get caught. It's like speeding.

Many speed, but not everyone gets caught. But when YOU are the one to get busted it's no fun.
So best to obey the law.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Ex Lurker

My recent experiences are a little different. I haven't seen anyone get penalized for probably a year+ for not hiding the address.

 

[Linda Buquet]

I'm still seeing reports of listings occasionally getting deleted at the G Business forum Phil.

You know that issue we've discussed where the Local part of the page is deleted or disabled leaving only the G+ part of the page that does not rank or have reviews.

But it's sometimes difficult to tell if not hiding address was the only violation.
Since the local page gets deleted you can't really tell if anything else was going on.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Linda

There was that issue I reported on in July, where it turned out that Google accidentally squashed SAB listings (causing them to lose the "local" part of their page).

I just haven't seen any SABs get penalized for not hiding. Personally, I think that's good. But I think it's because Google has been absolutely toothless about enforcing the rules. Case in point - that rule about not having marketing slogans in your name:

 

[Linda Buquet]

I agree.

Oh now that's a good one!

 

[accessted]

You know that issue we've discussed where the Local part of the page is deleted or disabled leaving only the G+ part of the page that does not rank or have reviews.

Can you point me to that thread.. I have my brothers listing that was suppose to resend a verification card and i never got it.. In the G+ dashboard I can actually go to manage the page and change some things, but when I click on "edit" it just brings me back to the main G+ page..no where to put in address or anything else. In the about section it does show the address. Almost seems it is blocked but not sure.

Is this what you are talking about?

If not do you know what that is? It almost seems like an active page, but you can not find it when searched or does not show up.

Also keeping on topic. If we see someone who is a home business and show their location should we report it? or just let it be? There are some I see and they have a home address showing and also on their adwords they have a different home address showing...

 

[Linda Buquet]

Can you point me to that thread.. I have my brothers listing that was suppose to resend a verification card and i never got it.. In the G+ dashboard I can actually go to manage the page and change some things, but when I click on "edit" it just brings me back to the main G+ page..no where to put in address or anything else. In the about section it does show the address. Almost seems it is blocked but not sure.

Is this what you are talking about?

If not do you know what that is? It almost seems like an active page, but you can not find it when searched or does not show up.

Sorry I can't find the thread. It's too generic to search for, would not know how to find it. But that does not sound like what I'm referring to.

I'm talking about a full G+ Local page that gets the local part stripped (the reviews and ranking on maps part) and then is just a G+ Business page with social features only - no ranking ability or review feature.

But ya that seems either penalized or borked.

You'd need to start a new thread in the help section with a link if you want us to take a look.

Also keeping on topic. If we see someone who is a home business and show their location should we report it? or just let it be? There are some I see and they have a home address showing and also on their adwords they have a different home address showing...

You can try. I'm not sure if Google would remove it or hide address or just let it ride. I've never reported one or heard from anyone that has, so not sure what kind of outcome to expect.

 

[HurricaneK8]

I tried reporting "should-be SAB"s in MapMaker for months before... Objecting to each time the LE Editor refused to delete it from the map. It did nothing, so I used the feedback tool... it also did nothing I gave up and decided if there was no ranking advantage, than there's no point wasting energy on it anymore (unless it was a fake address and they had a different address on their website).

BUT... When a bunch of clients GMB dashboards were upgraded to the new platform, some addresses became un-hidden. The company that handles the account said they had called Google about the problem, but the addresses were still showing so we had to manually go in and hide them all. So in that case I'm glad Google didn't crack down on them, because it was a glitch in their system that caused it.