Reservations Preferred link

[Alex Avellaneda]

Hi, there. Our reservation link has been selected as Preferred (under the Reservations section of GMB dash) for all our stores. Everything worked fine for a while but it's now one of the third party links that is showing as preferred on the knowledge panels. Out of curiosity, we've set a third party as preferred and it's now our link that shows as preferred on that store knowledge panel. We've opened a ticket with Google support and have yet to hear from them. Not sure if it's a bug but it appears to be affecting other businesses as well. Do you have any insights?

 

[Alex Avellaneda]

Correction, the issue is with the order link, not the reservation link.

 

[krystaltaing]

Hi Alex,

I have heard this from others and my understanding is you can only mark this manually. I hope Google has not given 3rd parties access to this feature as they are not the business.

Would you be able to post the details on the GMB forum along with your support case ID and I will see if I can get any additional info for you?

Thank you!!

 

[Alex Avellaneda]

Hi, Krystal.

Yes, the Order and Reservations links can only be marked as Preferred manually as there is no way to do this in bulk yet. I don't believe the third-parties have access as our links are still marked as preferred on GMB dash (see attached a screenshot for one of the locations Order section).

Here is the link to our post on GMB forum, the support case ID is #5-1591000030599. We've yet to hear from them.

Thank you!

 

[NevenaIvanova]

I have the same struggles with the preferred reservations link on my end. I haven't figured out a way to resolve this yet and I am waiting to hear from Google Support on the matter.

 

[Alex Avellaneda]

Hi, Krystal. We've posted a fresh new thread on Google support here.

 

[Alex Avellaneda]

Hi, Krystal. Google's just responded to our ticket. They've fixed the bug and our links (both under the Order and Reservation sections) show again as preferred for all locations. Thank you!

 

[Alex Avellaneda]

Unfortunately, this worked for a few days, then it reverted back to the third-parties.

 

[Alex Avellaneda]

We've been discussing with support for quite some time but are getting the runaround. We're either told that the preferred links show correctly (while they're not) or are being responded to with irrelevant canned responses. I guess Tier-1 support doesn't have any official answer to this issue. Either it's a bug or, worse, Google displays these links as preferred intentionally. The only thing we can do at this time is unmarking the links as preferred on GMB dash, this way at least the correct links are being displayed first.

 

[djbaxter]

@Alex Avellaneda please remember to upvote @krystaltaing's response above (right side of the post) if it helped answer your question or resolve your problem/concern.

 

[krystaltaing]

@Alex Avellaneda Thank you for the examples, I am still waiting to hear back from Google on this.

 

[Alex Avellaneda]

@krystaltaing

Today the preferred links appear correctly on all our locations.

Let's wait and see if they stay that way.

 

[Alex Avellaneda]

@krystaltaing

Hi, Krystal. Just updating this thread as the issue is back. Not sure if it's caused by the new "Food Ordering" tab...

Right now, if you added your link and that there's no third-party providers link, the order section won't appear on the knowledge panel.

GMB dash:

Knowledge Panel:

If you added your link and that there are third-party providers links, the order section will show up with only the third parties links.

GMB dash:

Knowledge Panel:

We've opened 2 tickets with Google support (case ID is 2-0756000031384 for the missing section and case ID is 4-5929000031184 for the missing link) and have yet to hear back from them.

We'll keep you posted.

Thanks!

 

[Alex Avellaneda]

Well, after over 2 months of back and forth with Google support, the issue hasn't been fixed and they didn't confirm if the order section is now only meant to display third-party links or not. This is affecting nearly 400 locations. The question we posted to the GMB forum was also locked, with replying disabled, a few days after we posted it... @krystaltaing @JoyHawkins Do you have any insight?

 

[JoyHawkins]

Alex,

I unlocked the thread over at the GMB forum so you can respond there to Krystal!

 

[Alex Avellaneda]

Is that the one? It seems still locked on my end... The order link section is missing or only the third-party links appear on the order section - Google My Business Community

 

[JoyHawkins]

Alex,

Sorry about that - try now.

 

[Alex Avellaneda]

Thanks, Joy! I hope we're gonna get some sort of official answer. Support via email hasn't been helpful.

 

[Alex Avellaneda]

They now won't accept a generic URL (say your website) under the "order" or "reservation" sections. Unfortunately, users need to be logged in to access our order/reservations URLs, so we're unable to use those either. As a workaround, we've used the locations landing pages on our website and it works ... well for now.

 

[Eoghan_Aircam]

Local listings pointing back to local landing pages isn't a bad thing, just make that 'ORDER NOW' button nice and prominent on the page!

If you want to remove any specific online order partner (as I know those delivery platforms can sometimes generate a listing for a business all on their own), bookmark this form