Really taking a massive dislike to google places right now...

[jewell10]

One of our google places listings has been tainted with a very negative review - not about our business, but about one "down the road".

It's been scraped in from Touch local, which I know isn't touch local's fault, it's googles.

I've reported the review about 5 times, written on the forum, contacted touch local through email and through reporting the review.

I know that the review has been merged with our page because the other business is on touch local under a nearby address, but the annoying thing is that the business doesn't even exist in that location!
So we're being merged with a non existant branch!

Apart from just waiting, anyone have any ideas of how to speed up the removal of this review?

 

[fisicx]

Nope.

What you could do is remove yourself from Google local until the bad review has been expunged.

Hope you aren't relying on this single source for your traffic. As you have discovered is can easily blow up in your face.

By removing your Google local listing and paying for PPC (for example) at least you will still get visitors to the site.

 

[Touch Local]

Hi,

My name is Richard from Touch Local. I'm sorry to hear of your problem with Google Places. I can see they have allocated a review left on our site to your Places profile and can confirm it is for a completely different company.

I notice we have at some point removed the business permanently from our site and the review with it and Google should have picked up on that, but I still see that page as indexed in Google. If they haven't visited the page to know not to index it any more they probably don't know to remove the review either.

So what I will do is force a removal request of that page from the index and see if that helps oil the process.

Why they assigned the review to your business in the first place I don't know, I believe Places uses the postcode and phone number as the matching keys when merging data from data partners like us and neither are the same as your business, so this shouldn't have happened at all as far as I can see. Very strange.

I'll message you privately once the page with the offending review has been removed from the index if that is okay?

Richard

 

[OldWelshGuy]

@Touch Richard, did the starter of this thread give you the required permission to allow you to submit data to Google places on their behalf then? or did you not submit their data and Google has once again messed up.

The data submission rules are fairly strightforward aren't they? Google state that you must have permission from the companies you data feed to them for.

@ jewell10, did you give Touch your permission to submit data on your behalf?

This is an all too common problem, with G places, they accept data at face value, but often times the company supplying the data do not have the required permission to actually act on behalf of the businesses they submit.

 

[jewell10]

Hi,

My name is Richard from Touch Local. I'm sorry to hear of your problem with Google Places. I can see they have allocated a review left on our site to your Places profile and can confirm it is for a completely different company.

I notice we have at some point removed the business permanently from our site and the review with it and Google should have picked up on that, but I still see that page as indexed in Google. If they haven't visited the page to know not to index it any more they probably don't know to remove the review either.

So what I will do is force a removal request of that page from the index and see if that helps oil the process.

Why they assigned the review to your business in the first place I don't know, I believe Places uses the postcode and phone number as the matching keys when merging data from data partners like us and neither are the same as your business, so this shouldn't have happened at all as far as I can see. Very strange.

I'll message you privately once the page with the offending review has been removed from the index if that is okay?

Richard

Thank you very much Richard. That's a great help and really good of you to go out of your way to help when it's not Touch Local's fault, but Google's.

It's nice to know that someone listens when there is a problem like this!

 

[jewell10]

@ jewell10, did you give Touch your permission to submit data on your behalf?

This is an all too common problem, with G places, they accept data at face value, but often times the company supplying the data do not have the required permission to actually act on behalf of the businesses they submit.

As our business is listed on touch local then I imagine at one point down the line (before I started here) a member of staff here signed us up to the site, and clicked the "agree to terms and conditions" box. In the terms and conditions it says that by signing up to touch local we agree that our information can be passed on to third parties, eg Google I guess.

Thing is, it wasn't our details passed on. This other company's review was just shoved onto our places page, which I imagine is mistake by Google, not Touch Local? As the original offending review was on the right Touch page in the first place.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Thanks for that, I have sent you a PM explaining why I asked

 

[Touch Local]

> oldwelshguy

Unfortunately Google used a review about a completely different company and assigned it to the wrong business. I hope that by forcing Google to deindex the page they will pick up on the fact the review is no longer available too.

Our terms of service cover permission to share business data with third parties like Google and enriched content that is submitted and publicly available on our site (like reviews).

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Cheers Richard.

 

[fisicx]

Irrespective of the error made by Google this really does highlight the problem associated with Internet marketing and user contributions.

Because it is very easy to add reviews and comments to all manner of websites it is possible to generate a lot of 'bad press' about a business. One could create a free blog, make forum posts, add reviews, twitter, use facebook or even make a youtube clip, all of which can create a bad impression. One can work to have these removed from the index but it has been demonstrated on a number of occasions that this can take a long time by which time a once good reputation can be tarnished. There is one site in America where you can badmouth a UK business and it is almost impossible to get the report expunged.

There have been a number of posts here and on other fora on the way Google is gathering and displaying information. It may well affect those small businesses who were relying on the free listing for traffic and do not have a alternate marketing plan. The times they are a changing as Bob once sung.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Google is laying itself open to claims for damages, in Scotland for defamation claims. It must get its act together if it is to remain at the top of the tree, currently it is slipping backwards at an alarming rate.

 

[fisicx]

But if I had a bad experience with bob the builder and posted it on ripoffreport and that report was appeared in the Google index under a search for bob the builder I'm not sure how Google can be taken to court. Bob could ask for a page to be delisted but my claim might be quite legitimate. Are we asking Google to censor everything before inclusion?

Agree that if Google associates a bad review with the different business but can we really be sure in this case that it wasn't the TouchLocal feed that had the error.

(not defending Google's apparent self-destruct scheme - I stopped using their services quite a while back)

 

[Touch Local]

... but can we really be sure in this case that it wasn't the TouchLocal feed that had the error.

Hi,

Google tries to match the data we give them to their own records using unique key identifiers, like postcode and phone number to attribute that content to the right business. There is is no one to one mapping table of businesses; we just give them the raw data and they do the rest. Unfortunately in this case not with an ideal conclusion.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

> fisicx

Hi,

Google tries to match the data we give them to their own records using unique key identifiers, like postcode and phone number to attribute that content to the right business. There is is no one to one mapping table of businesses, we just give them the raw data and they do the rest.

Yep, and that is the issue, the system google use is poor as a church mouse.

 

[fisicx]

Google tries to match the data we give them to their own records using unique key identifiers, like postcode and phone number to attribute that content to the right business. There is is no one to one mapping table of businesses; we just give them the raw data and they do the rest. Unfortunately in this case not with an ideal conclusion.

If Google isn't doing a good job will you stop feeding them data in order to protect your customers?

(being a bit contrary here I know but it's the only way to be sure it doesn't happen again)

 

[Touch Local]

> fisicx

Without ducking the answer too much, I don't think that is a question I am qualified to give an official response too, but from what I've personally seen, the quantity of similar issues raised our end is very small in number. But I guess we are one very small piece of the puzzle.

 

[jewell10]

Without ducking the answer too much, I don't think that is a question I am qualified to give an official response too, but from what I've personally seen, the quantity of similar issues raised our end is very small in number. But I guess we are one very small piece of the puzzle.

I agree. If Touch Local stopped sending Google data, someone else still would. The only way it'll completely stop is for Google to get its act together - and it seems it hasn't got any interest in doing so any time soon.

 

[fisicx]

Yup agree with y'all.

I really don't like the way Google is going (and has been for a while). Most people using this free service don't really care about the source of the data or how it is ordered as long as they find their cheap flights and games, look up information and be entertained. It matters jot one jot to them that you are now out of business because the listings were all skewed and since none of the people searching for stuff have really complained why should Google care.

They will look at the bigger picture and say your incorrect bad review reflected 0.000001% of the total reviews in the index. They aren't going to put a whole lot of effort into fixing it.

I rarely use Google for anything anymore, not much help to you jewell10 but as you said, Google doesn't appear to care anymore.

 

[MTPL]

Newbie here (Hello everyone) and I too am ever so slightly annoyed with Google to say the least.

Their review system doesn't work. Period.

Touch Local, how often do you give the data to Google. If a business listing is completely removed from Touch Local, how long would it be before Google updated their systems to reflect this?

I had a listing on Touch Local which I have closed simply because a review was left by a disgruntled ex-employee. The listing was removed on TL but the "Review" is still showing up on Google.

Far as I'm concerned, I now have no incentive whatsoever to use Touch Local or Google.

 

[MASSEY]

Far as I'm concerned, I now have no incentive whatsoever to use Touch Local or Google.

It's not touch's fault is it. It is a good resources to get your citations up on your local listing, if you can get a touch listing for free ofcourse. Cant see benefit in paying for a lisitng.

Or you can delete your local and start a new one?

 

[MTPL]

The listing WAS deleted weeks ago but a snippet still remains on Google. When you click the snippet, it takes you to a "Page Not Found".

 

[MASSEY]

The listing WAS deleted weeks ago but a snippet still remains on Google. When you click the snippet, it takes you to a "Page Not Found".

It will sort it's self out eventually they have started to update and refresh things more frequently now.

 

[Touch Local]

>MTPL

Hi,

We refresh our local data feed every day, and Google seems to hit it once a week or so. I've read anecdotal reports of Google taking 6 weeks to update their records on Places and Maps. I notice that although the OP review is completely removed from our system and the Google index it is still unfortunately showing on the maps listing a month later.

MTPL, would you like to DM me your business name or old profile url so I can see if there is anything we can do our end? Bear in mind that we have very little control over what Google chooses to do with the data we give them, but I can make sure the reviews are removed and old urls are no longer in the index.

One general area of improvement I have thought about relates to Google data partners not currently being able to offer separate feeds for additions, updates and removals. This is quite a common way to divide local data shared between partners and could potentially make a big improvement to the process.

 

[thetime22]

Comes with the territory, if someone decides to write a bad review theres nothing you can do about it. The problem is someone is always more likely to complain when something is bad as opposed to writing something good when they have had a good experience.

 

[thetime22]

PS- google wont delete bad comments. Fact of the matter is Google is overloaded with e-mails everyday and only have a few thousand staff to deal with it. They wont even read a complaint till a month after it's lodged...

 

[jewell10]

Comes with the territory, if someone decides to write a bad review theres nothing you can do about it.

Yes but if the review is bad and not even written about your business but it still shows on your places page, I think it's worth a try getting it removed.
Fair enough Google shouldn't remove legitimate negative reviews of a company, but if they have made the mistake in scraping the review of another company and attaching it to the page of a totally different company, they should do something about it.

 

[popunder]

This once again proves that all businesses need to consistently and pro-actively engage customers and clients to leave positive feedback to balance, and hopefully vastly outweigh, any negative feedback left by the occasional disgruntled person.

I have one restaurant client who's been in business for 20 years with a great reputation and hundreds of regulars, yet the first ever online review they got (via Google) was someone complaining. Typical.