Closed in Error on Google Places, Merchants Seek Fixes

[djbaxter]

Closed, Says Google, but Shops? Signs Say Open
By DAVID SEGAL, New York Times
September 5, 2011

In mid-August, Jason Rule learned some surprising news about the coffee shop that he owns and operates in Hays, Kan.: the place had closed for good.

Not in the real world, where it is thriving. Coffee Rules Lounge was listed for a few days as ?permanently closed? on Google Maps. During that time, anyone searching for a latte on a smartphone, for instance, would have assumed the store was a goner. ?We?re not far from Interstate 70,? said Mr. Rule, ?and I have no doubt that a lot of people running up and down that highway just skipped us.?

In recent months, plenty of perfectly healthy businesses across the country have expired ? sometimes for hours, other times for weeks ? though only in the online realm cataloged and curated by Google. The reason is that it is surprisingly easy to report a business as closed in Google Places, the search giant?s version of the local Yellow Pages.

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[Linda Buquet]

Thanks David, that's the story I was interviewed for a couple of times.

Hopefully this media attention helps Google realize they need to fix the way this features works so viable businesses cannot be marked as closed.

 

[djbaxter]

Thanks David, that's the story I was interviewed for a couple of times.

Hopefully this media attention helps Google realize they need to fix the way this features works so viable businesses cannot be marked as closed.

From the New York Times article at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/t...or-on-google-places-merchants-seek-fixes.html

When Google created Places it had an eminently sensible type of crowd-sourcing in mind. The site contains millions of listings, and when owners close without updating their profile, the job falls to customers to keep information current. But like any open system, this one can be abused. Search engine consultants say that “closing” a business on Google has become an increasingly common tactic among unscrupulous competitors.

“I’d say that it was in June that we started to see a big uptick in complaints about this in online forums,” said Linda Buquet of Catalyst eMarketing in San Marcos, Calif. “It might be that a number of consultants are now offering services like ‘nuke your competitor’ in Google Places. But it could just be a competitor, acting alone.”