Blog - Local Splash

David Rodecker, founder and CTO at LocalSplash reported last month that Google had hired 300 workers to focus on fixing Google Maps bugs. We decided to test this new reporting system and have been very impressed with Google’s response. “Last month when we reported that Google was hiring 300 workers to focus on Maps bugs I didn’t know how long until we see results. The below message was performed using the Report a problem link and I had a positive response within 1 day. Pretty impressive result. You should use this for any bugs that we come across.”

Below is the reply by a Google Maps team member:

Hi Dave,

Your Google Maps problem report has been reviewed, and you were right! We’ll update the map soon and email you when you can see the change.

Report history
Problem ID: 2882-085A-2530-5884

Your report: 25-1539 E Main St, El Cajon, CA 92021 is not an address. The prefix “25-” is not needed.

—
Thanks for your help,
The Google Maps team

Yesterday as I was working on some Google Places listing, I noticed that it had a rejected status. This is nothing new, as Google Places had been rejecting listings that didn’t meet the quality standards. I also noticed that Google Places now offered an edit option. Before, if it was rejected, the listing was blocked and there was no chance of fixing the possible violation to the guidelines. Google Places also offers a quick link to their guidelines which provides the user a quick read to educate one’s self and edit their blocked listing.

I am in the process of studying and discovering what made Google reject my current listings. I will update this blog when I find out. I also noticed that Google changed their dashboard look to include an alert section.

Sourced by Jorge Silva, QA Engineer, RelevantAds – LocalSplash.

Google added the ability for businesses to supply custom links to their Google Places business profile page. Here is an example with the feature in yellow highlight.

Google Maps Places Links

This can be set by supplying attribute in Google Places; the hyperlink text is defined as the attribute name and the reference is set by the attribute value.

Google Maps Places Links

Since “Google Local Business Center” is now renamed to Google Places, we figured a good name for this feature is Google PlaceLinks. The hyperlink is natural, meaning it is does not indicate no-follow, and opens into a new browser window; though we aren’t really expecting to see a PageRank benefit. More likely, we may hope to find a fast track to getting the URL to appear as an additional web reference citation, a local SEO benefit. Though that doesn’t seem to necessarily occur for URLs supplied as the business website.

We are going to start using PlaceLinks to promote specials or coupons and further highlight some of the permalinks on 3rd party destinations; such as Yelp, Facebook and Twitter.

Google hired 300 workers to focus on Maps bugs

Google Places now allows editing for rejected listings

PlaceLinks – Custom Links now shown in Google Places Page