Temporarily Closed-But Not!

[sarmcl]

We have 4 locations in MAryland and Google marked this locations as Temporarily Closed but they are not. ANy idea why Google would do this? Trying to find explanation for client. Only thing I can think of MD is a hot spot for Covid-19 and assumed they were closed?

 

[keyserholiday]

Google has been using government data and marking listings as temporarily closed. They also reached out to business owners to see if they were open.

 

[GuyFinley]

This has been a nightmare for me with locations I'm managing in Manhattan. I marked all these locations as temporarily closed but most of them come back as permanently closed after a few days. I just did another round to reopen and mark as temporarily closed. I'm not sure if they will stick.

Yelp is miles ahead of GMB on this, they added an option to add a COVID-19 message and they have a clear and easy process on temporary closures. I would hope Google would get their act together on this as it's frustrating and hurting clients who are already reeling.

 

[sarmcl]

We just had 2 more come in as Temporarily Closed. And they are not. I checked landing pages. Nowhere does this mention this. Fortunately I caught it before client.

 

[keyserholiday]

@GuyFinley were you seeing the listings marked as permanently closed live on Google in the GMB app? I have cases where the listings were showing as permanently closed only in the app and no on maps or desktop.

 

[GuyFinley]

@keyserholiday on maps and desktop it was showing them as permanently closed. In GMB they were closed and it was giving a message that Google had changed the status (which I don't get when I had already marked them as temporarily closed). I had to go back through, reopen them and then resubmit as temporarily closed.

Right now they all correctly show as temporarily closed again but they did before and it got changed.

On a side note, I submitted title updates with "Delivery Available" to their locations as they had changed that rule for COVID-19. It's been at least 3 weeks and they're still pending.

 

[keyserholiday]

@GuyFinley as soon as Google allowed it, they locked down the ability to edit the GMB names. If you have any examples of locations marked as temporarily closed showing as permanently closed, I'd love to ask Google to look into it.

 

[GuyFinley]

Thanks for the help @keyserholiday! This morning's review show they have stuck, I'll keep an eye on it and let you know if they change.

 

[Shelly]

This has been a nightmare for me with locations I'm managing in Manhattan. I marked all these locations as temporarily closed but most of them come back as permanently closed after a few days. I just did another round to reopen and mark as temporarily closed. I'm not sure if they will stick.

Yelp is miles ahead of GMB on this, they added an option to add a COVID-19 message and they have a clear and easy process on temporary closures. I would hope Google would get their act together on this as it's frustrating and hurting clients who are already reeling.

Guy,
I had issues reopening a business that I had marked temporarily closed in Yelp. My client reopened after a week of being closed. I updated the closure form for Yelp and though in the admin it showed to be open, the "Temporarily Closed" banner displayed to customers remained for days. Eventually, I called Yelp and they quickly removed it for me. On my end, Google has been much more reliable than Yelp has been during these changing circumstances.

 

[keyserholiday]

Please do a search for your clients yelp listing on Google. I have seen cases where they neglect to update the meta title for some businesses.

 

[Shelly]

Please do a search for your clients yelp listing on Google. I have seen cases where they neglect to update the meta title for some businesses.

Thanks for the heads up! I confirmed that the meta title looks accurate and the closed notice has been removed.

 

[GuyFinley]

Eventually, I called Yelp and they quickly removed it for me.

Shelly,

Working with your rep at Yelp is the key to quickly getting issues resolved. You called them, they fixed it. Good luck getting that kind of service with Google right now (or at all for that matter).

–Guy