GMB "Updates" overriding manual edits to hours

[Claire S]

I'm running into an issue with the Suggested Updates repeatedly overriding my edits. This is for a client with about 30 locations, and they changed their hours last week for daylight savings. When I went in to GMB to edit those hours for the winter, Google crossed out those hours and reverted them back to their summer hours:

No matter how many times I edit these (with a bulk upload or manually), they'll be "Under review" for a few minutes before they get published with the suggested updates instead. I've tried discarding the updates from the Businesses page, to no avail. I contacted support and got this reply:

The hours are correct on each location's website, and I submitted those pages to be crawled in Search Console, on the off chance that that helps. We also use BrightLocal for citation creation, and I'm working on removing or updating the hours for each citation for each location (in progress, but I've finished about half of the locations). Nothing has changed. It's been a week since I first edited the hours, and about 4 days since I completed the citation edits for the first few locations (ongoing).

There have been a couple of posts about this in the last few years, but I was wondering if anyone had any new recommendations or ideas on how to address this issue. Thank you for any help or ideas you can offer!!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

There's a good chance that it's being overridden by 3rd party sources.

Check out this article Who Keeps Updating My Google My Business Listing? | TOP-Rated SEO Advice | Sterling Sky Inc.

 

[MonicaH]

There's a good chance that it's being overridden by 3rd party sources.

Check out this article Who Keeps Updating My Google My Business Listing? | TOP-Rated SEO Advice | Sterling Sky Inc.

How do you find what those "3rd party sources" are???

I'm having the same problem with 2 of my clients and I cannot for the life of me figure out where the information is coming from. I've looked at every account and citation I can find through Bright Local, plus a general Google search, and keep coming up empty. It's driving me (and my clients!) crazy...

I thought maybe it was something like Yext but both clients say they've never even heard of it (which may be true but may not mean a previous employer or agency didn't set it up for them).

Any suggestions for where else to look?

 

[Colan Nielsen]

You can check what apps have access to your account under the security section of your account settings or use this link Sign in - Google Accounts

 

[MonicaH]

Forgot about that! Just checked it and found none with any access that would override GMB info.

 

[Claire S]

Yeah Monica, the same is the case for my client. No 3rd-party citation manager has access to any of our Google accounts.

The official sites, Yelp, Facebook, and all the other relevant listing sites for their business type have the correct hours, and I have removed or corrected almost all of the incorrect hours I could find through Brightlocal. So what gives? Where could they be finding these "other sources" that are outweighing what is listed on the official website (which is linked in the GMB profile)?

 

[Claire S]

Small update: I responded again to support, and they sent me this link, which does say that apartment complexes (which is what this client is) should not have hours listed on their profile. I can't imagine what the reason for this could be, but I tried removing the hours entirely, and GMB accepted that edit! I'm scratching my head over this, though. Is this Google's new recommendation for apartments? This is not the only multifamily apartment business that I've heard this issue come up for in the last few weeks. How are prospective and current residents supposed to know what time the leasing office is open if the profile cannot have hours?

 

[Claire S]

Small update: I responded again to support, and they sent me this link, which does say that apartment complexes (which is what this client is) should not have hours listed on their profile. I can't imagine what the reason for this could be, but I tried removing the hours entirely, and GMB accepted that edit! I'm scratching my head over this, though. Is this Google's new recommendation for apartments? This is not the only multifamily apartment business that I've heard this issue come up for in the last few weeks. How are prospective and current residents supposed to know what time the leasing office is open if the profile cannot have hours?

So it does look like that link that support sent me was updated sometime in September to include apartment complexes in the list of business types that should not provide hours. Here's the same page on the Wayback Machine on September 1, 2021, and if you look under "Business Hours" and click "Learn More," they don't mention anything about apartments. They do on the live page. I think this was a policy change for GMB, but that still doesn't tell me what I should do about it.

Feelin like Nancy Drew over here.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Claire,

Google told me the same thing about apartments, but it definitley doesn't explain the issue you're having. I don't see how it's logical that they'll let you add some hours and then not change them if they were trying to enforce this policy. I asked Google to clarify but haven't heard back yet.

 

[Claire S]

Hey all, I found a solution for this issue!

I changed the business category of my client's properties from "Apartment building" to "Apartment complex," and now I can freely add, remove, or edit the business hours as I wish. This is the silliest thing to ever happen to me, but there you go. Apartment "buildings" cannot have hours, but apartment "complexes" can.

@MonicaH tagging you so you see this, if you're still running into the problem.

 

[Jordan Kohler]

Hey all, I found a solution for this issue!

I changed the business category of my client's properties from "Apartment building" to "Apartment complex," and now I can freely add, remove, or edit the business hours as I wish. This is the silliest thing to ever happen to me, but there you go. Apartment "buildings" cannot have hours, but apartment "complexes" can.

@MonicaH tagging you so you see this, if you're still running into the problem.

Oh my gosh I have been battling this problem with some Apartments for weeks. It has been making me crazy. It was the Categories like you said.

What a weird thing but so glad you found it. It actually explains so much and I think other issues with info being rejected all the time is the same issue. Cause they fixed when I switched the category.

THANKS