GMB - Nested locations - GMB phone support requesting photos for verification

[rorys]

I am managing a bulk account for a client who has about 500 locations. Some of the locations have nested locations - similar to Walmart and within that Walmart is another department that acts as a separate business, like WalMart Vision Center. According to the GMB Quality Guidelines (https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en) you can create a separate GMB for each one.

I submitted the bulk upload spreadsheet but then later Google marked these locations as a duplicate. When I called Google phone support, they requested that I submit street view photographs of each location via an email, displaying the different entrances so that they can determine if they are separate locations or not.

I have never been asked for something like this before including times where I have submitted bulk uploads that had nested locations. The support rep also said that the GMB quality guidelines are just that ?guidelines? and that they don?t follow them precisely, which sounded absurd as this is the only place where GMB posts its rules & regulations.

Has anyone else been asked this?

Thanks

Rory Scherer

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Rory, thanks for posting this so I can try to get you some suggestions.

As I said, I'll share this with our Local Search Pros G+ Community which has a lot of advanced bulk users that may have insights and I'll ping Mike Blumenthal once I get the post up in the Pro Community too.

"When I called Google phone support, they requested that I submit street view photographs of each location via an email, displaying the different entrances so that they can determine if they are separate locations or not."

That's odd advice because the WalMart Vision Center or B of A inside a grocery store does not have a separate entrance.

"The support rep also said that the GMB quality guidelines are just that “guidelines” and that they don’t follow them precisely, which sounded absurd as this is the only place where GMB posts its rules & regulations."

But that part is true. There are a lot of unwritten rules. Google only gives general guidelines because to get too specific gives spammers a road map.

Plus there are so many different types of situations and different use cases they could not possibly cover every single type of situation.

Additionally much of it is left to the discretion/interpretation of the specific support person you talk to. Often if you call again and get a different person, you'll get a different answer. So my advice is usually to try support again. But let's wait and see what some pros say. Here and at the Pro community. (I don't deal with bulk at all.)

Here is the thread at the Pro Community and I pinged Mike too.

 

[cdawg2610]

Hey rorys -

I've had this more and more recently with a bulk account - the only way I've found to get around it is to be ask to be transferred to the supervisor, who seems to be more helpful and has the ability to make decisions and look at an account.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks so much Colleen!

Rory see other replies at the Pro community. Link above.

 

[mblumenthal]

Impossible to answer without knowing what kind of store/location/service it is.

 

[Cori Shirk]

I second what Colleen said- try to get this raised to a supervisor. Situations like this are tough for an algorithm to really grasp, and if it's a brand that a support rep doesn't immediately recognize (like Walmart Vision Center inside Walmart), you'll have a tough time convincing a rep to give you a pass on something that is likely ingrained into their heads during training ("squash duplicate listings").

Do you have access to the main brand's GMBL account? If you're able to prove that you manage the main locations as well as the nested locations, that might help make your case.

• If you don't have access to the account that houses the main listings, you could try to get someone's attention by finding a few of the main business's listings and
  attempting to claim them with your nested listings account. When someone tries to claim a listing that's managed from another bulk account, the owner of that account gets a separate email from a Google rep every time someone requests ownership for a listing. So while this doesn't actually DO anything, it can kind of send a message to the other account owner that you're trying to do something related to their listings. This has happened to some of my accounts before and it uncovered a problem with the way Google was understanding the main listings vs my nested ones. Unfortunately that issue hasn't been fully resolved yet, but...at least you're not alone?

If you're able to share the businesses' names (main + nested) we might be able to help more!