Google keeps changing business categories on Google+ Local pages. Why?

[Svenja]

We've noticed that Google changes the business categories in the 'info' tab. More and more of our customer +local pages only show 2 categories, but the places dashboard still shows all 5 categories.

Also, the 2 categories that are showing on the page are different to the ones we've put into the dashboard.

Has anyone experienced the same issue? Any idea what to do or why this is happening?

Thanks for any reply,
Svenja

 

[Linda Buquet]

There is a bug right now I think. I just reported it to Google. Please see this thread for more info and updates.

<a href="http://localsearchforum.catalystemarketing.com/google-places-important-updates/534-google-local-category-bug-bites-listings.html">Google+ Local - Category Bug Bites Listings</a>

So IF this is just a problem the past day or so it may be related.

But IF it's been happening for awhile, Google sometimes will add a category if she keeps scraping other listings from authority sites and believes it's relevant. For instance one time she added Physician as the 1st cat on my Internet Marketing category Place page. Who knows why she thought I was Dr. Linda.

So if new prob, wait for bug fix. If ongoing problem and cats are wrong, then you can use the incorrect data troubleshooter to have Google support fix it.

 

[Svenja]

Thanks for your quick reply Dr. Linda

We've seen changing categories for a while now and feel it's been getting worse since the merge of +local pages with business pages.

Thanks for pointing me to the thread. We're, too, hoping that since the right categories remain in the dashboard that Google still takes those into account for ranking.

Troubleshooting only seems to be helping for a few weeks and then it's changing back... let's hope it's just a bug and will be fixed soon.

Best regards from Berlin, Svenja