Why show permanently closed biz?

[Margaret Ornsby]

Maybe I'm missing something...

What's the logic in showing permanently closed listings in the Local Finder?
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[Linda Buquet]

I know, it causes lots of problems for us and for businesses. TONS complain that it looks like their business is closed because the old closed listing ranks instead of the new current location.

But some reasons they are do are likely...

Think of it this way. You are searching for a business. Let's just say a restaurant. Find one you like on Google, drive across town - only to find they are closed, but Google didn't tell you. Bad user experience.

You might be thinking that if they are really closed, Google should just omit them but I think 1) If the business is listed a bunch of other places Google wants a record of it too - so it looks like their data is complete. 2) Google can't control their scraping algo. So even if they deleted, if it's listed lots of other places she'll keep scraping and recreating the listing.

So I don't mind so much closed listings ranking that ARE really closed.

What upsets me and we've tried and tried to get it fixed, is that businesses that simply move and that are NOT permanently closed (read by customers to mean OUT OF BUSINESS) no longer get a "relocated to"message, but just show with a bold red Permanently Closed message.

I wish the Googler in charge of that decision had a Mom with a business that moved. And calls stopped coming in so she started losing income. All because searchers thought she was out of business because the Google listing that ranked for her business said "Permanently Closed"!!!

I think we should do a protest or something. Bring back the "Closed OR Relocated" message!
Too many small businesses are getting hurt by this problem!

 

[Dustybones]

Well, if they are going to continue down the road of offering the most efficient user experience in the 3 pack, I would propose Google Brings back the 7 Pack and include...

#D: Permanently Missing
#E: Permanently Missing
#F: Permanently Missing

 

[Linda Buquet]

Haha! Good one Justin!