Mapmaker POI Deleted + Google Places Dashboard saying 'Pending Review'

[russofford]

Hi All,

In the Google Places dashboard for my client, an apartment rental company, I have one listing that is being marked as 'Pending Review'.

I can edit the listing in the dashboard (and it becomes 'Active' again, with this link: Welcome to Google Places for Business

But when I click 'See your listing on Google', it shows "We currently do not support the location": Google Maps

A few weeks ago I was able to view the Google Mapmaker POI which showed that it was marked as 'Deleted', however I can not seem to even find that POI any more.

- - - - -

I wrote Google Places help trying to figure out why the listing is being shown as 'pending review' and shows 'We currently do not support the location'.

Derick W. with 'The Google Team' told me that "If your listing still shows as 'Pending' within your dashboard, or if you're still receiving the 'We currently do not support the location' error message, then your listing was likely affected by a technical issue..."

He said that there are "a couple of things you can do to help restore it to Google Maps."

To help restore your listing to Google Maps:
- review the quality guidelines (if it doesn't comply, it will be deleted)
- if you are a service-area business, is your address hidden? (if not, you may get deleted)

If your business fits within the guidelines:
- search for your business at mapmaker.google.com
- check to see if it has been marked as removed
- If you're able to find it, attempt to undo the removal and reinstate your listing on Maps

If your listing is marked as "Pending":
- you should also make an update from your (Google Places) dashboard to refresh the listing

If you are unable to reinstate your page with the above methods:
- remove your listing from your Google Places dashboard by clicking "Delete" then "Remove my listing from my Google Places account,"
- recreate the listing (and verify with a PIN)

- - - - -

So, the POI does not seem to even exist within MapMaker anymore, so I guess I'll have to delete the listing altogether and start over again (and loose my reviews)!?!

Is this a lost cause to try to recover the previous listing that is live in my dashboard? Should I proceed with his instructions to delete and recreate the listing... or should I try other recovery methods?

Thank you. Sincerely,

Russ Offord

---------- Post Merged at 01:43 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 01:30 PM ----------

It might also be worth mentioning that I found the 'old' Google Mapmaker POI URL from an embed code that I had on file:

The (partial) code was: src="http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&georestrict=input_srcid:f1c9696056ef29b5&ie=UTF8&view=map&cid=535811944382788633

So that would make the Google Maps URL: http://maps.google.com/maps?cid=535811944382788633

And therefore the GMM POI URL would have been: www.google.com/mapmaker?gw=90&cid=535811944382788633

However, those are both now dead URLs. Does this info help any or am I just even more so screwed now?

Russ

 

[Linda Buquet]

Russ I would NOT delete and start over.

Are you sure NO violations??? Some types of rental companies don't qualify for a Place page at all. See very bottom of guidelines.

If you feel it's within guidelines reply to Derek and explain this is not a home business. It's within guidelines. Was in MM and now you can't find it.

Tell him LINDA SAID if they accidentally deleted as part of the "tech" mess, IE small business take-down, then they need to HELP YOU fix it. Deleting and starting over is not an appropriate option!

QUOTE me! Grrrr!

This whole small business take down thing just really has me upset!

 

[russofford]

Hi Linda,

I am pretty sure there are no violations.

It is actually an apartment complex that had a previously working listing for years... with many real reviews.

I'll try to reply to Derick, but have a question about that...

If I wrote in for support with an email address: name1@company.com ... can I reply to his email (containing the case #) using name2@company.com? Or would that confuse the support system?

Thanks,

Russ

 

[russofford]

I was told by a Google Map Maker expert, Dan A., that I would need to find the POI in Map Maker in order for it to be recoverable.

I had saved a version of the GMM URL in this format:
google.com/mapmaker?gw=90&cid=535811944382788633

That URL has the CID, but Dan said that I should have been saving the URLs in using the FID version instead. My URL above uses the ?gw=90&cid= format instead of the ?gw=39&fid= format, so I likely won't be able to find the POI to recover it.

An example of a URL with an FID in it would be:
google.com/mapmaker?gw=39&fid=0x808fba1b1821955b:0x730cd81db2aa0859

I wrote Derek at Google back today about this issue. Perhaps Google has more/different tools to recover a missing POI. I shall wait a response, if I get any.

In the mean time Dan suggests that we should save both versions of the GMM URL in our spreadsheets for safety reasons, besides the G+ Local URL and corresponding maps.google.com URL.

Russ

 

[Linda Buquet]

If I wrote in for support with an email address: name1@company.com ... can I reply to his email (containing the case #) using name2@company.com? Or would that confuse the support system?

Sorry missed that Q.

Neither - I would only reply back to orig email with same email that was used to manage client account and therefore same email that you used for troubleshooter.

If email goes to client's email then I have them forward to me to see what it says. Then I ask them to his reply and give them the content I want them to send back to support.

 

[russofford]

As our company handles Google Places listings for 20+ clients, we use a unique email address for each of them, however that email address only forwards to a real email address, so it is impossible in this case to reply 'from' the original email address. Replies to Google support would come from the master email account.

For example our client's email addresses would be in this sort of format:

client-name-01@example-seo-company.com
client-name-02@example-seo-company.com
client-name-03@example-seo-company.com

Each of those email addresses all forward to a master email address account such as:

all-clients@example-seo-company.com

We would then theoretically reply to Google by sending the reply from that master email address.

There is no 'webmail' feature or way to reply from each individual account... unless we faked it with somehow customizing the 'from' address when sending mail.

I would think that many other companies do that same thing, so I why couldn't Google continue working with that same support request if the case # is in the subject line. (Here's hoping it works at least.)

I'll keep you posted as to if I hear back from Google using this method.

Russ

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Russ - I've had to respond to a Google employee with an e-mail that was different than the account that reported the problem and it worked fine. Just make sure to include the case # in in the subject line as you mentioned.

I also made sure to copy all of the prior correspondence into the body as well.