Linda Buquet
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There have been numerous complaints about from GoDaddy's "Get Found" service on Locu - one type of "menu" link that shows up on Google Local Pages. Complaints have surfaced at the Google forums, our Pro Community and here at this forum about. I assume these menu links are similar to the hotel booking links and there is a commercial relationship between GoDaddy Locu and Google.
Now you would think these menu links would only show up on restaurants, but they are showing up on other types of businesses as well. Sometimes with totally bad data, as you'll see in the examples below.
Essentially business owners (some that are not even restaurants) are claiming that Locu scrapes their data and creates a page for the company. (Fine, many directories do that.) However most companies will let you claim and edit the data if it's wrong. In some cases it's been reported that Locu only lets you change your info if you sign a contract and pay a monthly fee.
Let me start by sharing a few cases I've worked on or seen.
UPDATE 2/11 : All the Locu pages that worked as of the original post date, have now been deleted and go to 404 error pages.
<img src="http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/dividermulti.jpg" alt="dividermulti" width="550" height="4" />
#1 A Child's playground being wrongly presented as an adult entertainment play place with the Locu streetview image being a back alley looking scary type of house you would never leave your children at. (Instead of the nice building it's actually in.)
Here's the G+ Local page for The Nest a Children's Play space. (Check streetview it's a nice building.)
The Locu link goes to a shoddy looking adult amusement place called Paul & Brii's Love Nest.
The address and phone is correct but the streetview image on the Locu page looks like a back alley house you would NEVER leave your children at.
Talk about reputation damaging mistakes with both the misclassification as adult entertainment and the bad street view image!
UPDATE: I escalated to Google. They removed the menu link. But the Locu page is still a bad merge with the Adult entertainment name, cruddy streetview image and classification as adult entertainment - mixed up with the Nest's services, their brand, address, phone and URL.
<img src="http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/dividermulti.jpg" alt="dividermulti" width="550" height="4" />
#2 An auto dealer with a menu? Ahhh but it's a menu of facial spa services?
Why is there "menu" below our information on Google+? We're a car dealership.
The dealer said, he just wanted to get rid of the menu link. Don't think he even checked to see where that link landed. I investigated and it went to a page on Locu that I guess was a bad merge.
Head over to the <a href="https://locu.com/places/ron-hopkins-ford-inc-elgin-us/">Ron Hopkins Ford, Inc Locu page</a> and scroll down for all their facial and spa services.
Get Microdermabrasion while your husband shops for his new car??? Not a bad business model.
This is the one of the cases I've seen where the menu link was removed. In most cases, calls resulted in being told Google support has no control over those links, they are algo generated and can't be removed. But the bad Locu page remains.
<img src="http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/dividermulti.jpg" alt="dividermulti" width="550" height="4" />
#3 This restaurant's Locu Menu page had incorrect info AND says they are closed Friday, the busiest night of the week. Owner 'claims' Locu was holding his page for ransom. Then when he threatened to sue, Locu deleted the page. So now he has a dead menu link on his G+ L that he says support can't delete it and won't replace it with his own menu.
The Locu link has not been removed and still goes to a 404 error page.
<img src="http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/dividermulti.jpg" alt="dividermulti" width="550" height="4" />
Here are a couple other examples and related posts:
Removing Locu Menu from my Google+ Business Page (Another restaurant alleging bad info and image.) Again compare the street view images. The one on Locu, shows the restaurant in a bad light. It's basically a back alley shot instead of the front of the building.)
The consultant in the post above said: "My client is not willing to pay for their services to claim the page in order to correct the issue."
Dentist's G+ Local page has a menu link that goes to a Dry Cleaners page. (Looks like a bad merge like the car dealer.) I just found this one in the wild when spot checking.
There are 2 more below and other cases I've seen, but you get the picture, so I'll stop there.
<img src="http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/dividermulti.jpg" alt="dividermulti" width="550" height="4" />
Quite a few ex-Googlers work at Locu too, so you know they have some smart cookies. I'm sure most of their pages are correct. But there are enough problems being reported that it seems their scraping technology, their matching technology or something is problematic.
One thing is clear to me though. If this bad data was just on Locu, these SMBs would probably not even notice. But finding this bad info right on their Google+ Local page certainly gets their attention and makes these businesses highly motivated to try to get the info corrected! I'm sure there are some that would pay for the service, just to get the data fixed, especially when it's really bad.
In a post here at our forum Bryan Heckler said:
It took some doing to get a hold of someone, [at Locu] 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.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
1) If you have a Locu page with really bad info like that above, I have to think that if you were assertive or talked to the right person you could get Locu to edit it without a fee.
2) If you have a restaurant and your problem is that you want your own menu link instead of the Locu link, then the following discussion with Local Search Pros at our G+ Community will be of interest.
So in a nutshell based on what I've gathered in my research, if Google can easily find a properly marked up menu on your site she is more likely to use your menu. If not, she'll use one of the menu sites Google partners with, one of which is Locu.
3) However if you are not a restaurant and have a menu link that does not even make sense, you can't exactly create a fake menu in schema to replace the Locu menu. And from what I've read these are algo generated and Google support reportedly says they can't delete them.
We've escalated a few of these. Some have been removed and some have not.
Will keep you posted if I hear anything from Google on this issue.
How about you? Do you have "menu" links on any client pages? Any problems?
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