What's This? Unsolicited - HELPFUL Contact from Google?

[Don Berthiaume]

Hath Hell frozen over?

Just got these emails...

Hello,

I am expediting your request to verify your local +page. It looks like you have requested a postcard PIN to verify your +page, but I am manually reviewing your page and verifying it. You can discard the postcard when you get it in the mail.

Remember to keep the information on your page up-to-date by editing in your Google+ account. Please note that after you verify, changes you make to your page may be subject to review before being published. Learn more at Policy for edits to local Google+ pages - Business Help


Please take a few moments to answer a 5 minute survey about your experience with my support service today, it would greatly help us improve the overall support experience....(I purposely did not include link in case it might be "tied" to this specific request, but created a screencapture )

Thanks & Regards,
Ameer.
The Google Team.

Then one minute later, I got this one, which included "Congratulations" at the beginning.

Hello,

Congratulations, I have expedited your request to verify your local +page.
It looks like you have requested a postcard PIN to verify your +page, but I have manually reviewed your page and verified it. You can discard the postcard when you get it in the mail.

Remember to keep the information on your page up-to-date by editing in your Google+ account. Please note that after you verify, changes you make to your page may be subject to review before being published. Learn more at Policy for edits to local Google+ pages - Business Help


Please take a few moments to answer a 5 minute survey about your experience with my support service today, it would greatly help us improve the overall support experience....(see survey above)

Thanks & Regards,
Ameer.
The Google Team.

Sort of surprised to see this. Wonder how things seemed "trusting" enough for Google to not even verify by phone or postcard.

Has anyone else received similar emails from Google?

---------------

Unfortunately, for me, what this may have done was uncovered a dupe or something because this is the what I thought was associated with this client

Creative Years Child Development Learning Center - About - Google+

and this is what I think was expedited for verification

Creative Years Child Development Learning Center - About - Google+

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Don,

Thanks so much for posting and sharing that. I think Google has been doing this for a couple weeks now but they have not officially announced it yet, because I think it's just slowly rolling out in certain circumstances.

I've seen some reports at the G forum and I'm pretty sure we had at least one here. I'll try to find it later and post the link so you can compare notes with that case.

"Wonder how things seemed "trusting" enough for Google to not even verify by phone or postcard."

Were both listings in the same G account? My guess is that those are the ones that will get this special proactive treatment since they can tell if in same account it must be the same biz.

As for the dupe, there have been lots of cases over at the G forum even with regular manual verification where it appears that either the merge spawned a new dupe OR there was already a dupe and the wrong one merged with the G+ page.

Don't have time right this sec, but later will look at both listings and post any related links or suggestions.

Again thanks for sharing this with our readers. We are all figuring this out was we go along and best way to learn is by sharing!

 

[Don Berthiaume]

Thanks for the info Linda. I had done a quick cursory look see to see if there had been some discussion in here previously and had not spotted any. Been away for a few days so also trying to play catch up with things.

I'll be taking a look at the two listings later as well. Got a few things to finish up here first.

Were both listings in the same G account? My guess is that those are the ones that will get this special proactive treatment since they can tell if in same account it must be the same biz.

Yes, both exist in the same account.

Why is it that when you take a day off... it's almost inevitably followed by an off day?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Why is it that when you take a day off... it's almost inevitably followed by an off day?

Ain't it the truth?

I could SWEAR someone posted about it here. I can see the post almost but I can't find it either. But did find a post at the G forum. Still searching, more info later.

 

[Linda Buquet]

OK so not totally crazy just mistaken. Was thinking it was posted, but was via email.

Chris Ratchford, another one of our 'Local Pros', sent me the same email as your top email on 10/4.

I already knew about this and that they were doing it on some listings. I asked him if it was OK if I posted it in the forum. Didn't get it done because I was working on 2 bigger breaking stories at that time. ANYWAY, exact same email.

And here's one more in the G Forum. Requested a pin for Google+ business page, got an email from Google saying they verified it for us?

So anyway, you are one of the lucky few that Google has started doing this for so far.

Do you feel special?

No time to look at the dupe til later, just wanted to let you know the scoop on the expedited merge.

 

[Don Berthiaume]

Just checked today and there now only appears to be one listing, the old one having been merged with the one that Google so graciously manually reviewed and verified. So if anyone checks those two links in my original post, that [at that time] went to two different pages...they now both go to the second one.

It also seems to have been merged correctly - reviews and all - into a Google+ page.

Guess this story has a happy ending... at least for now.