Yay! PERMANENTLY CLOSED - Moved Business - Google Update

[Linda Buquet]

Last year around this time, I broke a story in the New York Times, an expose if you will, about how easy it was to erroneously mark a business as PERMANENTLY CLOSED on Google.

Closed in Error on Google Places, Merchants Seek Fixes - NYTimes.com

Wow was that only a year ago? Feels like EONS ago... I worked for days with the reporter, feeding him info and also suggested he talk to Mike Blumenthal who was also quoted. That particular problem took several months for Google to fix, but is now under control and businesses do not get maliciously removed as often.

Today, I'm happy to report about a related Google problem we've been pushing Google for change on, that has been fixed.
<center><img src="http://img1.uploadscreenshot.com/images/orig/8/23714485930-orig.png" alt="permanently closed" /></center>
When a business moves, Google recommends "closing" the old Google+ Local listing and creating a new one. However a HUGE problem is when you did that Google would put a yellow sign on the front door that said "This place is permanently closed." That label to me as a potential customer searching for a business says "OUT OF BUSINESS" and I'm going to go back to search and find a different business!

NOT COOL, if the business just moved, to say it is "permanently closed" and I've been harping on this for months. In that post I referenced a quote from Vanessa in April saying they were working on better messaging. Here is one of many discussions at our forum about the problems, and in that thread back in August I announced we'd been pushing Google on the issue again. At one point I finally said, if you can't give us an alternate label that says "This business has moved", can't you give us a combo message saying the business closed OR moved? Happy to announce the new improved messaging just went live!

YAY! Google has changed the label!

OLD: This place is permanently closed

NEW: This place has closed or relocated.

Image of New Label
​

Hat tip to Colan @ Imprezzio Marketing, a very active member here. I discovered the news at their blog yesterday. Google Finally Displays Proper Signage When a Business Moves | Imprezzio Marketing

Google moves slowly sometimes, but really appreciate it when they DO listen to us and get the job done!

 

[MiriamEllis]

A 'move' in the right direction!!! Thanks so much for reporting on this, Linda. Great to see.

 

[Flash]

Great to hear.

Now to be perfect it just needs to be upgraded to say:

This place has closed or relocated, or has changed it's name.​

Though rebrandings are somewhat rare, and you should understand the risks of doing so when you decide to do one.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yep great point Gregg!

But HOPEFULLY by the time they get around to giving us a "name changed" sign the scraping/merging part of the system will be controlled/improved to the point you can just edit the existing listing, instead of having to close and create a new one!

 

[JoyHawkins]

What would be awesome is if the business has relocated for the "relocated" to be linked to the new location or something.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Joy, this is just the 1st little step to making things better. More coming.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Bumping since most of you are out playing over the weekend and may have missed this news from Saturday.

 

[Pankaj Kumar]

This seems to be something good news from Google. Now onward business owners can show the relocation of the business rather then seeing CLOSE on the listing. Customers will also be happy to read it.
Google needs to make more updates in this regards only. Thanks Linda for sharing this post and for the valued discussion.

 

[Rich Owings]

It's back!....