Unwanted Postmates Link on Google Maps Knowledge Panel

[Cordell Crowley]

So we've had this occur on a small handful of clients in the last week: There is a link to postmates.com on the knowledge panel through the Booking feature in GMB. There are multiple things that are weird about this:

1.) All of these clients are florists. Florists typically don't even have the bookings feature available within GMB. It seems to have been forcibly activated just for the purpose of attaching the Postmates link.

2.) Postmates, to my knowledge, is primarily used for food delivery and sometimes grocery. So our floral businesses being registered on Postmates through the booking doesn't really make a lot of sense to begin with. Sure, you could do it I guess, but it just doesn't seem feasible to me.

3.) This being the weirdest: It isn't even clear how this gets set up in the first place. For the clients who have this on their listings, the only ones with access to the GMB listing are us and the client themselves, neither of whom set anything up with the bookings feature much less through Postmates.

All of the above leads me to believe that Google has set these listings up with Postmates through the bookings feature themselves which is concerning. I'm just not sure what other explanation there is. I talked to Google support on Wednesday about this and they got back with me this morning saying that I would need to actually call Postmates directly to get the link off of the listing and they didn't really have any insight beyond that.

Here is a link to one client affected by this. We're going to do a full audit of our agency dashboard to see how many clients have this enabled.

 

[JoyHawkins]

So this happens (unfortunately) in lots of industries. I'll paste the section from my training on how to fix it:

Google scrapes 3rd party menus and adds them to the Knowledge Panel for businesses. One site we see a lot, for example, is Single Platform. If you have a 3rd party site showing in the menu section of your listing, here is how you can get rid of it.

In the Google My Business dashboard:

• Open up the listing and click on the Info tab
• Look to see if there is a field for the menu, like in the screenshot below.
  • If there is, just remove the menu link here
• If there is no field there for your listing it’s because Google hasn’t enabled it for your business category yet. A way around this is to add a secondary category to your listing that has it enabled.
  • Add the secondary category “Asian Restaurant” (or any other type of restaurant)
  • Wait a few minutes after you save. If you go back into the dashboard, the menu field should now be there.
  • Remove the menu you don’t want on your listing.
  • Remove the restaurant category you added.

 

[Mollie]

I

So we've had this occur on a small handful of clients in the last week: There is a link to postmates.com on the knowledge panel through the Booking feature in GMB. There are multiple things that are weird about this:

1.) All of these clients are florists. Florists typically don't even have the bookings feature available within GMB. It seems to have been forcibly activated just for the purpose of attaching the Postmates link.

2.) Postmates, to my knowledge, is primarily used for food delivery and sometimes grocery. So our floral businesses being registered on Postmates through the booking doesn't really make a lot of sense to begin with. Sure, you could do it I guess, but it just doesn't seem feasible to me.

3.) This being the weirdest: It isn't even clear how this gets set up in the first place. For the clients who have this on their listings, the only ones with access to the GMB listing are us and the client themselves, neither of whom set anything up with the bookings feature much less through Postmates.

All of the above leads me to believe that Google has set these listings up with Postmates through the bookings feature themselves which is concerning. I'm just not sure what other explanation there is. I talked to Google support on Wednesday about this and they got back with me this morning saying that I would need to actually call Postmates directly to get the link off of the listing and they didn't really have any insight beyond that.

Here is a link to one client affected by this. We're going to do a full audit of our agency dashboard to see how many clients have this enabled.

I had an issue with a Single Platform link showing on a client's KP. GMB support told me the link was being used to fill the void for a field that was not being used on your GMB and there was nothing they could do to remove it.

I would recommend filling out every possible field on your GMB listing. Also, try reaching out to Postmates support to have them completely remove the listing from their site.

In my case, once Single Platform deleted the profile, it no longer showed on the KP. I am hopeful this will be the case for you if Postmates removes the profiles of your clients.

 

[Cordell Crowley]

@JoyHawkins We've experienced the menu issue with Single Platform a lot actually so I'm familiar with that one. That is the issue with what we're facing here is that it actually has nothing to do with the menu url on the dashboard and is instead done through the Bookings feature. The menu section on the Info tab is untouched.

We see the above screenshot when we go to Bookings. No way to remove the Postmates link or anything, and I'm still not sure how the listing gets registered with Postmates to begin with because it wasn't done by us or the business. This is what leads me to believe Google is doing this themselves and registering the business with Postmates through the Bookings feature automatically, though how/why I'm not sure on.

We have 2200+ businesses in our agency dashboard so a full audit hasn't been done yet but it is on the list to do this week. I did a mini-audit on Friday last week and of the 110 listings I checked, 6 of them suddenly have Postmates set up through the Bookings feature when they didn't even have the Bookings feature at all previously.

If we have to reach out to Postmates to get rid of these on each listing then so be it, but I don't agree with Google automatically registering the business with them through Bookings without a way to easily remove it. At least with the Single Platform issue that is simply a link in the Info tab you can remove.

 

[JoyHawkins]

@Cordell Crowley do you mind posting this (and the details of the business) on the GMB forum so I can escalate it and ask Google about it?

 

[mblumenthal]

Can also share the screenshot of the business public profile showing the Booking button?

 

[Cordell Crowley]

Not a problem! Here is the link.

Thanks! I'm curious to hear what Google has to say.

 

[mblumenthal]

Would please also share the public view of the listing?

 

[Cordell Crowley]

Can also share the screenshot of the business public profile showing the Booking button?

Sure thing.

It actually doesn't have the Booking button and instead just has an "order" link.

 

[Cordell Crowley]

Update:

So after checking on each listing in our agency dashboard, we found that 82 of our 2,251 verified listings have the Bookings feature set up with Postmates as the earlier screenshot showed. All in the U.S. No real pattern geographically either as the 82 are spread out almost evenly from east coast to west coast. The population of the city the business is located in doesn't seem to matter either as it stretches all the way from 3,432 at the lowest (which is odd because I'm 99% sure Postmates wouldn't operate in a small area like that anyway) to NYC at the highest.

All these listings have "florist" as the primary category.

 

[keyserholiday]

Are the business are the same brand or industry? Are they all florists or are you seeing other categories being updated.

 

[JoyHawkins]

I heard back from Google on this.

There are 2 things you can do here.

On the Google side, if you want to prevent these 3rd party links on your listing, you can opt out here: Opt Out of Online Food Orders on Google - Google My Business Help (yes, even though this isn't a restaurant).

Additionally, as Ben mentioned, you can contact Postmates to have them remove it.

 

[Cordell Crowley]

Based on the little note on the opt-out form that says "Please do NOT use this form for requests related to Order URLs on your Business Profile." I would assume we can't use it for removing the existing links and it's used purely for preventing future links. We'll go ahead and contact Postmates about removing the existing ones and fill out the form as a precaution for each client then.

Thanks for the information everyone!

 

[hajnasiewicz]

So this happens (unfortunately) in lots of industries. I'll paste the section from my training on how to fix it:

Google scrapes 3rd party menus and adds them to the Knowledge Panel for businesses. One site we see a lot, for example, is Single Platform. If you have a 3rd party site showing in the menu section of your listing, here is how you can get rid of it.

In the Google My Business dashboard:

• Open up the listing and click on the Info tab
• Look to see if there is a field for the menu, like in the screenshot below.
  • If there is, just remove the menu link here
• If there is no field there for your listing it’s because Google hasn’t enabled it for your business category yet. A way around this is to add a secondary category to your listing that has it enabled.
  • Add the secondary category “Asian Restaurant” (or any other type of restaurant)
  • Wait a few minutes after you save. If you go back into the dashboard, the menu field should now be there.
  • Remove the menu you don’t want on your listing.
  • Remove the restaurant category you added.

Any idea what triggers the Booking option in GMB? Many of our business locations have it, all Grocery, but a few do not. Thank you.

 

[hajnasiewicz]

Sure thing.

It actually doesn't have the Booking button and instead just has an "order" link.

Same here with the Order: postmates.com I selected "Edit your business" from the knowledge panel interface, selected "Change name or other details" then scrolled to "Place an order" where I found postmates.com/merchant/d-w-fresh-market-grand-rapids?client=customer.web&version=3.0.0 and selected "Incorrect" and then chose "Add Another" and added our own ordering URL. Our own ordering URL was accepted but postmates remains.

 

[hajnasiewicz]

Same here with the Order: postmates.com I selected "Edit your business" from the knowledge panel interface, selected "Change name or other details" then scrolled to "Place an order" where I found postmates.com/merchant/d-w-fresh-market-grand-rapids?client=customer.web&version=3.0.0 and selected "Incorrect" and then chose "Add Another" and added our own ordering URL. Our own ordering URL was accepted but postmates remains.

Please help.

 

[hajnasiewicz]

and when I follow the link to postmates and select "grocery" on the right side of the page, it indicates that postmates doesn't even operate in the city the grocery store is in. aaargh! I really just want to remove postmates and promote our own ordering/delivery service. Anyone?????

 

[JoyHawkins]

@hajnasiewicz you need to reach out to Postmates to ask them to remove your listing from their site.

 

[hajnasiewicz]

@hajnasiewicz you need to reach out to Postmates to ask them to remove your listing from their site.

and I'm in communication right now with GMB support who seem to indicate that once Postmates honors our request to remove their link from our knowledge panel then the "Booking" option will no longer be available to us and so then in our Knowledge Panels the "Order" link will be removed and we will not be able to promote our own proprietary online ordering/delivery service. SO messed up.

 

[hajnasiewicz]

Local business links - Google Business Profile Help

Your Business Profile can include 2 types of links that make it easier for customers to learn more about your business. They can also take action directly from your profile on Google Maps or Search.&n

support.google.com

The link to this help info seems to be outdated. I wish to implement Ordering URL. Is there an updated process to make this happen?