What account should I use when reporting duplicates- clients or personal?

[Amber Robinson]

Hi All,

I deal with a wide variety of clients and often have to mark listings as 'closed' or 'duplicate'.

Is it best to make these edits from my personal account or from the account that the Places page is in?

In the past I would make the edits while still signed in under the clients account but was curious if the edits would carry more value if I made them from one account and gained more trust from Google.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Amber,

Troubleshooter reports always are made from the account that the listing is in. I don't even think you can do it any other way.

For "Report a Problem"/"Edit Business Details" I usually use a single account (my e-mail)to do all of the reporting. Especially since this reporting feature is more deeply connected to Map Maker, as it's possible to earn trust with Google by making good, consistent edits. There is a good thread in here on that subject that Andrew spoke to. I'll see if I can dig it up, and hopefully he will see this and weigh in.

 

[Amber Robinson]

Thanks Colan, very helpful.

Looking forward to reading that thread!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Agree with Colan. But also think it depends.

If it's an edit that could be tougher to get approved like a name edit (that's correct in dash but wrong on listing - NOT talking rebranding or anything) mappers and Google MAY have more trust in the edit if it's coming from the owner. Could be same with category edits maybe too. Also if they are tougher edits and DON'T get approved, then they won't affect your personal rating as far as # of approved edits.

But for fairly innocent, easily verifiable edits I agree - I'd use your account with either edit details or report a problem to build cred, rep and lots of approved edits for your own account.

 

[Amber Robinson]

Thanks, Linda.

I was hesitant on using my personal account b/c we have such a variety of clients and not all of them are in Texas. So, I wasn't sure if edits from my personal account would seem a little suspicious if they were jumping around from state to state.

I think I have a definite approach from here on out. Thanks y'all!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Agree with Colan. But also think it depends.

If it's an edit that could be tougher to get approved like a name edit (that's correct in dash but wrong on listing - NOT talking rebranding or anything) mappers and Google MAY have more trust in the edit if it's coming from the owner. Could be same with category edits maybe too. Also if they are tougher edits and DON'T get approved, then they won't affect your personal rating as far as # of approved edits.

But for fairly innocent, easily verifiable edits I agree - I'd use your account with either edit details or report a problem to build cred, rep and lots of approved edits for your own account.

Great points, Linda.

 

[Andrew Sawyer]

The client's account is something that should be used for the actual listing being edited by that account. As Linda said it is best to do edits for that business in the dash. And if it affects the business like Colan said to use the troubleshooter.

What it sounds like you are describing here is making reports/edits of existing businesses on the map that aren't clients of yours for which there is an account or duplicates of businesses you are working with. It is a good idea to build trust in one account for the other GMM users/reviewers to know and recognize. The type of edits you make, unless you do general editing, will be obvious that you're an SEO so I wouldn't worry about editing all over, as many people in your line of work (or not) do it all ready.

What is important is to never use multiple accounts to accomplish one task, ie making and edit in one account and approving/reviewing in another. That's a BIG no-no and can result in all the accounts being shut-down. Also, making quality edits is key. You don't want to rack up many bad edits in MapMaker (what edit business details uses for processing direct action edits). When using Edit Business Details it is possible to not do the edit in MapMaker but you have to use the upper selections and not touch the lower fields which relate to the feature.

If you feel comfortable with using your personal account to make general housekeeping edits then use that. If you don't want to mix work with personal then use one just for work and personal for everything else. Just don't overlapp the acitivity in those accounts and Google will stay happy. Additionally you shouldn't be using MapMaker, etc for edits which you can accomplish in the Dashboard as it is a trusted source of data for that feature and it is the best way to give feedback to Google about that feature.

Think of multiple accounts (including client accounts) as circles of trust. They should only be used for what's covered by the circle, ie client dashboard/account is for that feature which that account was created for. It isn't for marking your favorite vacation spot for. You could do it but it detracts from the effectiveness of all your accounts (yes Google collates access across accounts behind the scenes when it feels it nessecary). So if you can't indicate duplicates in the dashboard I'd use your normal account for reporting duplicates and other tangentally related issues. But if its for the actual business (name, address, etc) you should be using the dashboard because to otherwise would circumvent the trusted feedback to Google.

I hope I have described this adequately. Please let me know if there is something that doesn't make sense or needs more clarification.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Awesome and very detailed reply. Thanks so much Andrew!