◆ Google Local Frankendata Spawns Newly Brooded Frankenlistings

[Linda Buquet]

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Haha... well maybe not so haha... frustration more like it...

But just had to share this post from the Google and your Business Forum,
because I love the way this user writes and it's soooo true.

My thoughts after the quote.

<a href="https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/business/NHkEijxmYbU/xaEd6zYIQuUJ">How to avoid duplicate listings and resurrected frankendata</a>

Dear Google Support Forum friends,
Please provide your suggestions on how to best maintain Google Maps listing accuracy.

Duplicate listings get spawned within Google Maps by Google bots apparently scraping incomplete data off other directories and then plastering the resulting frankenlistings across Maps with incorrect business titles, URLs, data, hours, descriptions.

Sadly, these newly brooded spawnings can be deemed as the more established listing, while our previously phone PIN Verified much older listing gets erroneously marked as duplicate.

Other times, the frankendata simply spam the SERPs, sometimes even showing up before the actual Verified and more complete listings.

Since being a Verified Owner of a business listing, populating and enriching it with content does not guarantee that our data will be honored by Google, what other ways are there to maintain our listings as the authoritative source data that Google trusts and shows in search results?

Would initiating a listing via the Google API give us more reassurance that the listing won't be marked as a duplicate?

I'll reply over there later today when I get time. So frustrating I know!

I'll give her this video to watch by David Mihm, which I use in my training. And you should use it with clients too. It's the best thing out there to explain how these complicated issues can come up with the listings Google creates. <a href="https://moz.com/blog/how-business-listings-made-whiteboard-friday">How Business Listings Are Made - Whiteboard Friday</a>

But the answer of course, is that Google does not just make this stuff up!
She's getting the info from somewhere.

So if you don't want Frankenlistings - control your Frankendata!

I know, I know... Easier said than done. But there are lots of tools and services that could help you clean up all that bad data.

Since she didn't give a URL and sounds like she maybe has a variety of issues. May even has multi-location issues on top of all that. So could be "GMB Locations" would help. I can't really give her more specific advice unless she'll provide more info.

All I know is she just gave me some new catch phrases and you can be sure this won't be the last time you hear me say:

"You need to clean up your Frankendata!"

Or

"That's a scraped dupe Frankenlisting!"

Did this post help add 2 new words to YOUR vocabulary?

Think some of your customers will be able to relate???

Image Credit: Digiday

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[Dustybones]

Sweet little tool....thanks.

Duplicate Google Business Page Tool

This tool uses the Google Places API to return all Google+ My Business pages that Google thinks might possibly match the business name and zip code you entered (non US postal codes will work as well). It?s useful for figuring out what Google+ pages are out there that are of the local business type (as opposed to Brand pages) for a given business.
Business Page Tool: