Locu (godaddy) menus appearing in Google local?

[heckler]

Greetings Y'all,

I was curious if anyone has experience using Locu's menu service? (I guess that's what you call it!?) All-a-sudden I found a link to a company menu in the info area and was curious how this came to be?

The business listing is shared management so it is entirely possible that the client did this and is just clueless as to what they've done, but I wanted to pick someone's brain who may know more about how this happens. I called Locu/GoDaddy's support, but they knew less about it than I did.

The link itself goes to a menu page for this med-spa, but is labelled as a 'restaurant' which has me concerned (a separate issue).

Any clarity is greatly appreciated!

EDIT:
This board is so darn helpful - related posts directed me here: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/business/rcukTbc1U4A/6IsuhEpIXw0J

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks heckler for bringing this up. I've had it on my to-do list to do a post about it.

It's been happening for quite some time. Previously I thought it was businesses that did paid advertising with Locu.

But then I helped this car dealer at the G+ forum.

His Locu page had the car dealership name in URL and Title - but spa services on the rest of the page. See it here.

The dealer never returned after I helped him to tell me what happened (or say thanks) so I'm not sure what happened. The menu link was gone last time I checked but its back now.

So not sure if that's a weird scrape or a weird merge. But I'm pretty sure they didn't pay for that page and if he read my post he could have asked to get that page pulled. So since he didn't reply, no idea what's up.

I didn't realize Locu had anything to do with GoDaddy until you mentioned it. If GoDaddy is pushing it we'll see it alot more on SMB listings I imagine.

 

[heckler]

Well if I figure out how it connects/merges I will certainly let you know. It has me scratching my head.

I read through part of Locu's on-boarding process and they do ask for an invite to your GMB listing. Personally I hope the client just absentmindedly added them and it is not some kind of crazy Google-merge...

 

[heckler]

Greetings Y'all,

Update on the Locu/Godaddy situation.

They removed the menu and it finally fell off the listing. They had to 404 the menu page and apparently Google has a menu/price feed that Locu (and a handful of other 'menu' companies feed into).

We are currently one of the many Menu/Price List data providers that Google pulls from. Google refreshes their menu feed 2-3 times a month and pulls directly from our API.

It took some doing to get a hold of someone, but they did take care of it. It seems to me that they could actually market to SMBs by creating menu pages for companies and feeding those menus/prices to Google. When they're incorrect it forces you to contact them to get it corrected... pretty good marketing technique.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks for reporting back heckler!

I worked on a nightmare case recently and there have been several others reported with bad merges and bad data.

"When they're incorrect it forces you to contact them to get it corrected... pretty good marketing technique."

Ya makes business owners especially desperate to pay to get the info corrected, when it's showing up right on their Google listing.

Have a big post almost ready to go with a bunch of examples. Will try to post it tomorrow.

 

[Linda Buquet]

I worked on a nightmare case recently and there have been several others reported with bad merges and bad data.

Here's the big post I promised.

<a href="http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-local/27935-numerous-complains-about-godaddys-locu-menu-links-google-local-pages.html">Numerous Complains about GoDaddy's Locu Menu Links on Google Local Pages</a>