Why the $%!# Does Google Keep Updating My Business Hours? (A Case Study)

[Colan Nielsen]

Hey Guys, We have been doing some research into the influence that the Data Aggrgators have on Google Local listings. We recently discovered just how direct Factual's influence can be. This is an ongoing case study but I wanted to share the first post about it. I'm hoping this post helps with your own client troubleshooting!

Why the $%!# Does Google Keep Updating My Business Hours? (A Case Study) | Imprezzio Marketing

A business owner came to us with a relatively uncommon Google My Business (GMB) problem. Their business hours on Tuesday kept switching to ?closed.? This would happen like clockwork once every two weeks. They would go into the GMB dashboard, edit the hours back to normal, and they would stick for almost two weeks and then revert back to being closed on Tuesday. Clearly not an ideal situation. Customers were getting confused and potential business was being lost.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Colan!

I didn't get a chance to talk about this, but there was a big business hours problem over the Holidays I almost posted about.

Over Christmas my daughter asked me if I knew why the major local mall was closed on a Saturday 2 weeks before Christmas. She said everyone on Facebook was talking about it and speculating bomb scare or something.

So I Googled to try to find out what was going on that would make the biggest mall in the area close on a Saturday - especially right before Christmas!

I noticed their Knowledge Graph said CLOSED on both Sat and Sun.
A Mall - closed EVERY weekend???

Checked the site and the hours were like til midnight every day due to Xmas.

BUT people believe Google. Google said they were closed so everyone thought they were!

I would have done a big post, called them, tried to help etc. But by the time I was able to get back to it, things had changed. Wish I had taken a screenshot!

Next time I checked there were NO hours at all. Checked other malls around the country that are part of that chain and they all had NO hours showing too.

So my guess is they could not control the hours on Google, so finally decided not showing hours at all - so people would have to go to their site to check, was safer.

 

[Scott Rawlins]

Thanks for sharing Colan. Can't wait to read it.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Guys,

Joy and I discovered the "big bang" that caused the incorrect hours problem. I've updated the blog post with what we discovered - (Update) Why the $%!# Does Google Keep Updating My Business Hours? (A Case Study) | Imprezzio Marketing

It turns out that the reason that it kept reverting was that the website listed ?Tuesday?s? as opposed to ?Tuesday,? which caused confusion and caused the hours to constantly change on Google. Here?s how the hours are listed:

 

[Scott Rawlins]

Interesting. Thanks for the update Colan.

 

[Laustin1878]

We always look to point a finger elsewhere meanwhile, all we have to do sometimes is look in your own backyard.

Glad it appeared to be an easy fix once discovered. KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid right?